Gross motor skills are the movements children develop using their whole bodies. Adults who work
with children can support spontaneous movement by creating a safe environment for them to play in
and encouraging activities that will help young children become stronger,
fitter and live life with vitality.
So, as practitioners, what’s your role in ensuring that children are as active as possible?
Yeah so I think that there is a kind of need for practitioners to explain and describe and
narrate what children are doing physically. I think as practitioners it’s really important
for us to always to model that language of that can-do attitude, like you said, really kind of
narrating their experiences and their development within their physical play.
So yeah, I think that’s a key part of that practitioner’s role. And also, as adults, we know
that children, you know, by the time they’re five, 90% of their brain’s developed and that is a key
key thing for us to remember, in that actually we’re not just looking at gross motor skills and
helping them develop that through resources, we’re looking at how they are developing an attitude to
physical development that they will carry with them, potentially for the rest of their lives.
So, thinking about setting up environments that are really challenging and varied and
encourage lots of gross motor movement, what’s the role in the adult in ensuring that we strike
a balance between the environment being challenging but also safe for children?
We use a lot of large, loose parts in our outdoor environment. So,
things like scaffolding planks and tyres and cable reels, ropes, lots of different loose
parts for them to be able to access whilst we’re in our outdoor environment. And what I think is
really beautiful about that opportunity is that children can take those risks and are able to risk
assess themselves whether they feel safe. So, as a practitioner, if I can sense that a child is maybe
not feeling the safest they could at that time, I might say something like ‘Do you feel safe?
What could you do to make yourself feel a bit safer, or make this a bit more steady?’
How do you support children’s sense of confidence? I think this is really important as a practitioner
that you have confidence in the space you’re in yourself. So, there’s a lot of kind of
risk assessing that goes on before the scenes in terms of children’s play and their learning. So,
being able to know and feel really confident in your space that you have risk assessed that space
to make sure it is safe and that there is ample amount of risk-taking opportunities,
so it’s not gone too far the other way in that there’s no challenge within your space. But that
confidence that then I have as a practitioner passes on to those children, because I know they
are able to achieve within that space. So, with me being relaxed in that space, in their risky play,
because I know that they aren’t going to be able to do anything to really harm themselves, is
very infectious. They’re able to carry that on and then that kind of, it’s a two-way
relationship of that coming. That confidence is shared between everybody in the group.
Yeah, so I’ve been thinking about giving children lots of
opportunities to visit and revisit resources or spaces. And I just, I think about when I
am with children going out to the woods, how obviously children have different developmental
journeys, and some children take a while to get used to that space, to be confident in it,
to see what’s there, to see what’s out there, how they can use it, how they can be.
Give children confidence by allowing them time to visit and revisit spaces, places
and resources. Repetition helps. Giving children lots of time to look and ask what is out there,
how can I use it, supports their confidence in giving it a go.
Children need to experiment with the natural push and pull of their world, exploring how their body
relates to it and others around them. Having the chance to explore these areas of learning
allow us to have an impact on children’s lifelong attitudes to physicality and the joy of movement.
Children between one and four years old should be physically active for at least three hours
per day. This promotes their long-term health outcomes, their brain development,
learning across the curriculum and their sense of vitality and joy.