What aspects of physical development should we focus on within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and other early years curricula? In this article, I explore the importance of physicality at this crucial point in a child’s development. The article explores two key aspects, “moving and handling” and “self-care”. It defines the key terms and illustrates the ways in which children can be supported to grow and develop in themselves.
Moving generally refers to how children move with their whole bodies, mostly through gross or large motor movements such as running, rolling, and jumping. Handling has more to do with our fine or small motor movements such as pinching, mark-making, and threading. This article will explore why both types of movements are vitally important for children’s physical and holistic development, whilst also acknowledging that physical development extends beyond just gross and fine motor skills. Furthermore, it will address some of the strategies that we can use to nurture the development of these fundamental skills in our youngest children.
When we use the term “self-care”, we are referring to how we support children to look after themselves and their basic needs in order to survive and thrive.
What we have learned from much research is that young children are driven to move; moving and handling are among their most natural learning mechanisms. Why is this so important and why do young children need to move so much? Firstly, it is knowing that young children move to learn as well as learn to move. Children’s movement contributes to their gross motor development, and there are three large gross motor movements that are of significance in the early years, namely: Cross Lateral Movement; Balance and Coordination (Vestibular Development); and Deep Sensory Awareness (Proprioception & Interoception).
