Space, fresh air and children's freedom of movement have all been considered essential to early years education in Britain for more than a hundred years. However, outdoor areas like the garden at Woodlands Park Nursery Centre have felt pretty damp, grey and dismal this winter. With wind and rain often penetrating the most sheltered corners, it is easy to feel gloomy about outdoor play.
But there is still a buzz in the excitement of physical activity every morning as children arrive and move freely in and outdoors. The enjoyment the children feel is impressive as they splash in puddles, scoop up mud with shovels and battle for proficiency on the monkey bars and scooters.
Physical activity is important in itself, as a means of staying healthy and developing controlled movement. It is also crucial to other areas of learning. Children find out about spaces, perspectives and heights as they run around an area or climb to the top of a climbing frame. Early scientific learning about textures and how substances change as they are mixed together will often take place in the context of physical exploration, like the feel of carpet when you slide along it, or the experience of getting bogged down in mud.
Children communicate powerfully with movement as they engage each other in chasing, or dancing, or spinning in a gust of wind. Some of children's earliest pretend play occurs in the context of physical movement, pushing cars along the floor and making engine noises, and making cups of tea and pans of soup in the sand tray.
'For young children, physical development is inseparable from all other aspects of development,' says Lesley Staggs, who is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Foundation Stage as the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority's principal manager for the early years. 'They learn by being active and interactive. Effective physical development helps them develop a positive sense of well-being.'
In planning for children's physical development, practitioners need to be concerned about children's safety. Equipment should be checked, and risks assessed, on a regular basis. But children also need to be challenged and stimulated, and it is common to see children taking the most risks when the equipment is not demanding enough. I can vividly remember children scaling the wire fence when I taught in a nursery class with a small outdoor area which lacked exciting climbing equipment. It is also worth remembering that equipment does not have to be high to be challenging. Monkey bars, ropes and narrow beams can all be quite low, so that there is little risk of serious injury.
Careful planning and organisation are vital. If the bikes only come out once a week, then the level of demand is likely to be high. There will probably be a lot of conflict over them too. But equally, going outdoors and always seeing the same old collection of bikes and climbing equipment is unlikely to inspire anyone. The different needs of children can be met if the core equipment is readily available but it is adapted and extended to provide more challenges. A fixed climbing frame soon becomes boring, but if practitioners clip on ladders, beams and ropes then the equipment will remain interesting to the children. Bikes can be made more challenging with the addition of trailers, or if there is a tricky trail to follow. Children will benefit most from equipment which can be arranged flexibly, which is challenging but safe, and which they can access regularly.
Case study: Joshua
Joshua is a four-year-old boy at Woodlands Park Nursery Centre who has difficulties with co-ordination and grip. He relishes the opportunities for physical development that the nursery provides. Last year, he spent months struggling to climb the hill in the garden area. He has recently started sitting on bikes and scooting along with his feet. Joshua also loves water play and will spend up to an hour engrossed in pouring water in and out of containers.
Denise, Joshua's key worker, spends time talking with Joshua's parents about his play at home and in the nursery. They also discuss the recent advice and assessment they had from the occupational therapist.
Denise suggests that planning for Joshua should start from his interest in physical play to support his developing interest in pretend play. Washing clothes and bathing dolls in the home corner are two experiences which Joshua particularly enjoys, and he is able to take on the role of pretending to be an adult in both of them. He also pretends to make cups of coffee when the cups, spoons and jugs are put in the water tray.
Joshua gets deeply involved in large-scale messy activities which Denise plans, like exploring a huge pile of shaving foam on a table, stirring and spooning a tray full of cornflour mixed with water, and manipulating playdough. While he is exploring the playdough, he is given a chance to experiment with the specially adapted cutlery provided by the occupational therapist.
Joshua is using physical movement to express his ideas and feelings. At home, he enjoys dancing to pop music, and Denise plans for him to repeat this with his friends in the nursery. Joshua is encouraged to make marks when staff set up large-scale finger painting for him, and Denise provides large sheets of paper with marker pens. Denise also plans for helping him to use a Roamer floor robot.
Together, these experiences will support Joshua's growing awareness of how movements look and feel. The movements of the Roamer and the trails left by his fingers and the marker pens will help Joshua to think more abstractly about movements and directions, which will in turn help him to plan and control his own movement.