Moving to Learn – why movement is so essential for young children’s learning
Children in the UK are amongst the lowest age in the world when they start school. This was a decision first made in 1876 on the Factory Act’s recommendation, to stop child labour, resulting in making school compulsory for children aged between five and ten in 1880. In fact, only 22% of the world’s children start school so early and almost all come from former or current commonwealth countries, as the British influence spread. Since that date we have steadily increased the school leaving age, so that more children have a wider range of opportunities to support them into work. This begs the question why has no one looked at the other end, the starting point? Why are our children starting so young, with what is after all, the legacy of Victorian decision making based on an emerging need for safeguarding?
Some would argue that the earlier they start, the better; it gives parents more opportunity to work and there may have been some merit in the economic argument in the past, but now that many working parents in England are entitled to 30 hours funded childcare from three years of age, this is somewhat outdated. There is no evidence to support that starting school earlier improves educational outcomes, if it were true the UK would have one of the highest performing education systems in the world. According to the PISA [1]results published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation (OECD) in 2016 we were ranked in 15th place for Science, 26th place for Maths and 23rd place for Reading. Of course, there are many other factors at play as to why our children are doing as well as they could be, but it is clear to see that them being there earlier is not giving them any advantage.
Why does this matter? It matters because we now have a clear understanding of how children develop and learn that we perhaps were not so clear about in the Victorian age, and that the systems, culture, pedagogy and practice that are commonplace in schools do not always support the developmental needs of children nor do they enable their learning. You could argue that the building is not the important factor, but what happens inside and the culture ethos and vision that the school holds around early education, and indeed there are examples of good practice.
However, this is not the norm and it is not uncommon to see reception aged children in school sitting for long periods of time on the carpet or at tables doing their ‘work’ and made to complete tasks for which they are not developmentally ready, inhibiting their development and preventing them from learning. The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is built on the characteristics of effective learning, playing and exploring, active thinking and creating and thinking critically. If you think about it this is how we all learn isn’t it? Think learning to drive, or baking a cake or learning to sail, you learn by doing not by sitting and watching, or by cutting out and labelling pictures.
The increasing pressure schools feel under to improve their results is resulting in a top down approach whereby children are required to sit still, hold pencils and complete a range of, often inappropriate, adult initiated tasks in order that they are better prepared for Key Stage One. Indeed, the new baseline has conceded that learning in Reception classes needs to be more in line with Key Stage One, because a significant number of children are still not meeting the early learning goals, which are deemed to be the benchmark for school readiness and the national curriculum. No one appears to be asking the question why this is the case, nor are they considering the possibility that it is the Key Stage One curriculum that needs to be brought in line with the EYFS, so that more children can develop at their own pace and succeed.
Of course, many schools do value play based learning but they are increasingly torn by the real challenge and pressure to improve results, so they make every effort to get children ready for the demands in Key Stage One in the hope that this will improve results. This is a flawed approach, as we know that to learn children need to have their needs met and that means ensuring their physical and developmental needs are met too.
Physical development is a prime area of the EYFS, that means it is as important as communication and language and personal, social and emotional development. The three prime areas are the building blocks for learning, yet too often the physical needs of the growing child are overlooked, or take a lower priority.
Children need to move, they are programmed to do so, it is an innate need and they know it is good for them. Watch any small child who is awake and well and they will be moving all the time. They do it because they are exploring their bodies and learning to be in their surroundings. They are growing so fast that this is a constantly changing relationship, things they couldn’t reach before are suddenly easy to get; skills they were unable to complete become manageable, every day they need to re programme their internal body map and develop their sense of personal space. They move to develop a control of their bodies and to learn to refine their movements and this takes lots of practice, but most importantly, they move to learn. Connell and McCarthy state “all learning begins with the body”[2] and explains the link between the development pf ‘muscle memory’ in the brain to that of cognitive brain development. They argue that moving develops the predicting and sequencing skills necessary for all learning.
It makes no sense to have small wriggly children sitting still why we teach them something, they are so focused on trying to be still, which is unnatural and uncomfortable, that they cannot take in the information anyway. This sitting still to learn approach is preventing our children from learning, and makes sense even for adults as when we are physically uncomfortable all our energy focuses on that and it is extremely difficult to take in and retain information.
Some would argue that they need to learn to be still and this is an important skill for the future. This is obviously correct, but you don’t learn to develop and grow, it is a sequence. You don’t put a young baby in a chair to teach them to sit up, or give them a teething ring to teach them to have teeth. Development and growth is sequential and children need time, space and opportunities to practice developing at their own pace. This is highly applicable when it comes to writing, if children haven’t mastered the gross motor skills and the wide pivotal movements from their shoulders they will struggle to hold pencils and other small writing implements. Simply sitting them down to practise holding a pencil is like asking a baby to hold a spoon in a hope they might feed themselves, they will eventually, but no quicker that they would have done had the skill been encouraged at the right time.
Moving is so integral to healthy development it impacts on children social and emotional development too. Young children are often seen to be bonding around movement, running, jumping, and chasing each other. This fires off synapses in the brain that aid learning and social development, boisterous play encourages children to relate to each other and learn about physical boundaries.
So, the answer to the challenge in how to improve outcomes for children could lie in the need for children to move. It’s time to have a radical rethink of our Reception classrooms, a root and branch assessment of culture, expectations, staffing, environment and planning. It is still possible to teach and to ensure children are fully engaged learners without restricting them physically, it just requires some imagination and fresh thinking as well as the courage to stand up for what is right for children.
The environment needs to be enabling, fewer tables and chairs and more space to spread out, a good outdoor learning space that encourages movement, spaces to run climb, sit and even roll around. All these movements help children to develop control over their bodies and the sooner they do that the better they will be able to sit still, eventually!
Top Tips for promoting physical development
· Think whole body planning – phonics, maths, writing, stories and most other learning can all be done through moving around
· Plan your classroom so that children have spaces to work on the floor without other children walking through
· Ensure planned tasks are child centred and built on children’s interests – that way they are more likely to engage and learn
· Ensure the outdoor environment has a variety of surfaces, textures and levels for children to use
· Provide lots of opportunity for children to move and carry things around
· Get outside as much as you can – plan for as much learning to be done outside as possible
· Provide lots of vertical surfaces for children to draw paint, chalk and write on
· Think ‘does this have to be done at a table?’
· Support children to manage their own risks – risk averse adults often inhibit movement and play
· Join in and play with the children
· If children must sit still for some reason, make sure it is for short periods of time and try and build in some movement time – e.g. actions songs in assembly
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/leaguetables/10488555/OECD-education-report-subject-results-in-full.html
· [2] Connell G and McCarthy C (2014) A Moving Child is a Learning Child. Free Spirit Publishing
