The sound of rolling wheels and children’s gleeful screaming can be heard at an Ore Church Mice Pre-School session in Hastings, East Sussex. Inside, manager Glen Russell is spinning children around the room using an expandable hose attached to a trolly board. ‘It’s really good for the inner ear balance,’ says the practitioner.
In the summer, Mr Russell completed a free, online training course from the Open University to help counter cases of poor physical development. ‘We are in an area of deprivation and a lot of our children live in flats in very cramped conditions,’ he says. ‘It’s quite normal for children of two to come in who have only just started walking.’
Supporting Physical Development in Early Childhood was developed in partnership with Public Health England and is hosted on the learning platform FutureLearn. The course is divided into three-hour-long sessions over six weeks covering topics including growth, play, senses and movement.
Mr Russell took part in the pilot course, which attracted some 6,000 students internationally. He said the variety of participants, who could add comments to the modules, meant you could ‘bounce ideas off people’. The content included sound clips, videos, and articles, and there was no formal final assessment.
The course helped Mr Russell realise the importance of letting children repeat activities. ‘We’re a pack-away setting and it can be easy to fall into the trap of feeling we need to put new things out every day,’ he says. ‘But actually, people need time to refine what they are trying to do.’ He says this helps children physically, but also in problem-solving and cognitive terms.
The course also highlighted the importance of rest and sleep. ‘I’m looking at ways we can build more restful times into what we do,’ he says.
Following this pilot stage, the course formerly launches on 9 November.
Further information: https://bit.ly/34cSUkd
