Programme
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Registration, refreshments and exhibitor viewing
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Chair’s welcome
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OPENING KEYNOTE: What children’s bodies and brains need
An overview of why physical development is one of the prime areas of learning and how it underpins children’s learning and development from birth. At a time when children are becoming increasingly sedentary, Sally Goddard Blythe shares her decades of neuro-physiological research to demonstrate how children’s bodies and minds work together and why this underpins their learning and development. This session will explore:
• Children’s in-built biological need to move and challenge their bodies in different ways
• How varied aspects of movement support children’s motor development - from eye movements to hand control
• The link between physical development and development of emotional security
• How to ensure children have enabling environments that are developmentally appropriate for their physical needs
• Supporting a child to be ‘well balanced’ and how this impacts on their school readiness
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Getting everyone moving: some top tips
How does the way practitioners feel about moving and being active impact their daily practice? Dr Lala Manners discusses how what is good for children is also good for adults and shares top tips for everyday moving together.
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Refreshments and exhibitor viewing
Your chance to network and view our exhibition of leading early years suppliers
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Physical development in under threes
Julia Manning-Morton considers the complexity of physical development in the first three years of life and introduces the Piklerian idea of naturally unfolding motor development. She discusses physical development as a central component of the web of development and the relationship between infants’ experiences of movement, touch and being held, and their emergent self-concept.
She will also focus on environments, resources and practices that support the physical development of babies and toddlers and identify those that inhibit free movement, such as ‘containerisation’ and ‘tummy time’.
Workshops (choose A, B or C)
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A. Embodied learning: bringing movement play indoors
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Hear about the value of indoor Movement Play Areas – places for children to draw upon their body intelligence alongside their cognitive intelligence - and look at creating one in your own setting to enable child-led, spontaneous free flow movement play to become a key part of the learning environment. This session will explore:
• the merits of bringing movement play indoors when you have a fabulous outdoor area
• what kinds of learning happen there and what that learning looks like
• ways to set up this space to support new physical development practice
• the roles adults can take to create and support the Area to promote maximum learning, health and happiness
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B. Developing your physical development practice
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Get moving in this workshop that will provide ideas and tools to help you confidently support children to develop their fundamental early years skills - including balance, co-ordination and spatial awareness - through engaging everyday activities that you can take back to your setting.
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C. Supporting self-initiated free movement
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This interactive workshop will explore Emmi Pikler’s ideas about the importance of self-initiated free movement for the natural progression of physical development in infants and young children. Using guided experiential activity based on the work of Ute Strub - a student then colleague of Emmi Pikler – delegates can regain awareness of their own movement patterns and so gain greater insight into the child’s experience. This benefits us in better understanding and nurturing the physical unfolding of babies and young children.
Speakers
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Lunch and exhibitor viewing
Break
Good food and networking
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Using the MOVERS scale to measure and enhance the quality of physical development
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The physical foundations for learning need to be secure to ensure young children are equipped to cope with the demands of later, more formal classroom learning with balance, posture and coordination all playing an important role.
Professor Iram Siraj highlights the importance of physical development and its connection to other domains of learning: cognitive and social-emotional. She introduces delegates to the MOVERS scale, a method of measuring the quality of environment and pedagogy in which young children are encouraged to move and be physically active. She also considers how the MOVERS scale can be used to improve the quality of teaching and learning for young children.
Speaker
Professor of Child Development and Education at the Department of Education
University of Oxford
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CASE STUDY: Maximising physical development outdoors
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Hear how practitioners at Brougham Street Nursery School use responsive planning to utilise their small but valuable outdoor learning environment to support children’s physical development. Their outdoor space is limited, but they ensure their development opportunities are not - whether that’s through active play at Forest School, embracing a trajectory schema by installing a basketball hoop, or by being an effective contributor in their local community.
Speakers
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Refreshments and exhibitor viewing
Break
Your chance to network and view our exhibition of leading early years suppliers
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CASE STUDY: Embracing rough and tumble play
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Discover how staff at Hargrave Park School successfully and safely adopted rough and tumble play, and how it had a positive impact on children’s physical and literacy skills.
Speakers
Early Childhood Teacher and Consultant
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CLOSING KEYNOTE Motion and emotion: exploring grief and loss through movement play and dance
Presentation
Recent times have made us more aware of the need to support children with the difficult emotions surrounding grief and loss through death and bereavement. But these topics are always relevant for children – particularly when they are dealing with big emotions around separation and transition - which are not unlike the feelings experienced by adults when they are grieving the loss of a loved one.
This session will look at some of the ways we can use movement play, music and dance to ‘tune into’ children’s emotions, enabling them to safely explore difficult feelings and be supported through them.
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Sum-up and close of conference
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