With children (and adults) becoming increasingly less active, we in the Developmental Physical Education Group at the University of Edinburgh have been working to construct a vision of pre-school physical education - a task all the more important in the light of current thinking and attitudes towards physical development.
Our experience suggests that although early years educators readily acknowledge the importance of movement in children's development, movement by itself is more often considered as a channel to children's cognitive, social and/or emotional development than an important feature of learning in its own right. In fact, movement often appears to only become an issue when significant developmental delay is identified.
This marginalisation of young children's physical education stems largely from the long-held misconception that children's movement development 'just happens' (Gessell, 1928). No surprise, then, that pre-school curriculum documents in both England and Scotland talk of children's physical development, and not their physical education.
These attitudes are in stark contrast to contemporary thinking in developmental psychology, which suggests that movement development is much more complex than originally envisaged and is influenced, over many years, by the indivisible interaction between:
- the movement tasks a child attempts
- the child's previous experience and changing level of maturation
- the environment in which the child is attempting the task (Thelen & Smith, 1994).
While maturation remains a key factor in the development process, what is becoming clear is that the role of supporting adults in creating appropriate and 'rich' movement learning tasks and environments is significantly more important than previously thought.
In addition to current thinking and attitudes, we had to ensure that our framework sat with a developmentally appropriate early years movement framework and conceptions of play and active learning that hold much currency in early years thinking (Learning & Teaching Scotland, 2007).
MOVEMENT FRAMEWORK
The Movement Framework we have developed (below) is based on the belief
that children need to develop a solid movement foundation that is:
- efficient
- adaptable
- creative.
We have, therefore, built it around:
- generic movements
- basic movements
- movement concepts.
Why did we opt for this structure?
Generic movements
Generic movements are important because these are the non-specific movements that help young children to become confident about their body's movement potential. Generic movements act as the basis for the many basic movements that develop later.
To better understand these movements, we devised a grid (see opposite) based on balance, co-ordination, postures and rotations - the four key elements that underpin all children's (and adults') movement and combine to create an almost infinite number of movement possibilities.
While most children are keen to explore their body's movement potential almost from birth, many, as they get older, are deprived of regular opportunities to further build up this awareness, competence and confidence and so create the balance and co-ordination possibilities that their bodies allow.
Basic movements
Basic movements are important as they emerge from combinations of generic movements and are used by children in their daily play and routines (walking, jumping, etc).
These movements can, in turn, be broken down, with the two main categories being travelling movements (walking, running, jumping hopping, skipping, climbing, etc) and object control movements (throwing, catching, dribbling a football, striking a moving ball, etc).
Since the 1960s, research has highlighted how many of these basic movements move through a developmental process from an initial emergence, involving few body parts, and through a transitional period to a mature efficient phase, usually from six or seven years of age onwards.
The expectation for most pre-school children, therefore, is not that they reach the mature phase of basic movements, but rather that they develop a solid generic movement foundation and begin the process of developing mature basic movements.
Movement concepts
Adding movement concepts to the framework provides the potential for children to adapt their movements or create original movements. This is important, because children need to perform movements not in one 'gold standard' manner, but rather in numerous different ways, particularly when involved in games, sports and dance.
Movement concepts link to the cognitive, social and emotional factors of movement. They can be divided into three categories:
- space - to help children know where the body moves
- effort - to help children know how the body moves
- relationships - to help children know with whom or what their body moves.
PEDAGOGY, PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES
Helping children develop a solid movement foundation is a long-term process which begins early in life and extends throughout the school years. As noted earlier, this does not 'just happen' in the early years, but requires quality support from adults to create regularly appropriate learning opportunities that will help children explore, consolidate and extend their movement creativity, movement adaptability and movement efficiency.
Implications for practice
The following suggestions resonate with recent advice about active learning which suggest that 'children learn by doing, thinking and exploring, and through quality interaction, intervention and relationships' (Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2006):
- Supporting adults need to develop a detailed knowledge and understanding of an early years movement framework to inform their pedagogy and help scaffold children's learning.
- Assessing children's movement on a regular basis through observation and discussion is the key to identifying appropriate developmental needs and goals for each child.
- Children should be offered daily movement opportunities which include a range of non-specific generic movements, more specific basic movements and the use of different movement concepts.
- Children's initial movement engagement should be the starting point, as it provides adults with the opportunity to support children's exploration, help them find their own solutions, set their own tasks, make decisions, practise and talk about movement. This interaction between adult and child is very much at the heart of developmentally appropriate physical education.
- Supporting adults should be constantly creating 'rich' and exciting learning experiences by modifying children's movement tasks and the environment in which the tasks are taking place. Different movement pictures, drawings and music can act as an excellent stimulus.
- Children's movement experiences should be set up in different environments, including small sections of the nursery area, large halls and outdoors.
- Children's parents and carers have the potential to play a critical role in children's movement experiences and should be involved in discussions from an early stage.
Mike Jess is senior lecturer of physical education and co-ordinator of the Developmental Physical Education Group at the University of Edinburgh and Jan McIntyre is a specialist teacher of physical education currently on secondment at the University of Edinburgh. DPEG's work is being funded by various agencies, including the Scottish Government.
THE EARLY YEARS MOVEMENT FRAMEWORK
Generic and basic movements
Balance and co-ordination
Travelling movements
Object control movements
Made adaptable and creative by:
Movement concepts
Space, Effort, Relationships
REFERENCES
- Learning & Teaching Scotland (2006), 'What do we mean by active learning?' http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/curriculumforexcellence/publications/ Buildingthe curriculum2/index.asp (accessed on 26 October 2008)
- Thelen, E & Smith, LB (1994), A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press
THE MOVEMENT CONCEPTS
SPACE (Where)
Space: Self space, general space
Directions: Forward, backward, sideways, diagonal
Pathways: Zigzag, curved, straight
Levels: High/medium/low
EFFORT (How)
Speed: Fast/slow; gradual/sudden; erratic/sustained
Force: Heavy/strong; light/soft
Flow: Smooth/jerky; bound/free
RELATIONSHIPS
(Who/What with)
Body parts: Identify; body shape; wide/narrow; twisted,
symmetrical/asymmetrical
Objects: Over/under/through; in/out; front/behind; on/off
People: Co-operative, mirror, shadow, unison, alternating, competitive,
chase/flee, attack/defend
BALANCE AND CO-ORDINATION
Balance
Two main types:
Static balance/still body
Dynamic balance/moving body
Postures
Main positions in which the body is being held
Upright, mid and lying posture
Co-ordination
The relationship between body sector and body parts
All sectors doing same
Sides or top/bottom only
One or more sectors in opposition
One or more sectors crossing the mid-line
Rotations
Around the different axes of the body
Turn, twist, rock, roll, spin