Being active keeps young children fit and is central to their ability to develop their social, language and cognitive skills naturally. The first five years of a child's life are when they learn the skills and attitudes that they need for lifelong participation in physical activity that will keep them fit and healthy.
Leading an active life brings huge benefits to a person's physical, emotional, psychological and social well-being. The Health Education Authority (1997) has summarised these health benefits: Short-term effects of activity
* Improved coronary heart disease profile
* Lower levels of obesity
* Improved quality of life Long-term effects of activity
* Reduction in heart disease in adulthood
* Reduced risk of obesity and osteoporosis in adulthood
* Increased possibility of lifelong participation in physical activity.
Unfortunately, many early years settings tend to view physical development and fitness more as an adjunct to learning rather than an integral part of the curriculum. As a result, children's health and physical development are often left to chance.
The Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage document recognises the important contribution that physical development has to offer in supporting children's health, noting that it enables children 'to feel the positive benefits of being healthy and active' (p100). And two of the early learning goals relate to health and fitness:
* Recognise the importance of keeping healthy and those things which contribute to this
* Recognise the changes that happen to their bodies when they are active (p110).
Activity levels
Establishing how active young children are is no easy task. Parents tend to exaggerate their children's activity levels and young children cannot recall accurately their activity levels during a day. As a consequence, much guidance to date is based on adult prescriptions, which has raised concerns about the intensity of exercise best suited to children.
Young children's activity patterns fluctuate - one moment racing around, then standing still, then off again. It is also rare for children to sustain physical activity for any length of time.
The current view is that rather than have children endure blocks of quite intense activity, settings should be facilitating a build-up of activity of different intensities during a day (Doherty & Bailey, 2003).
One model of activity that resembles children's natural play patterns is the children's Lifetime Physical Activity Model (Corbin, 1994): Frequency: Periods throughout each day Intensity: Low-moderate-hard. Rests Time: Up to 60 minutes over the day Type: All types of physical play, walks to and from the setting, outdoor play.
It is far better, too, that practitioners value the activities that children enjoy and take part in naturally, and that adults introduce them to activities that are likely to motivate them to continue an active lifestyle.
Leading roles
Early years practitioners can foster children's physical well-being in three main ways:
* by acting as role models and promoting positive attitudes to physical activity and exercise
* by educating parents about the importance of promoting children's physical development and fitness (see box)
* by ensuring that opportunities for promoting children's physical development and fitness are incorporated into their long-, medium- and short-term planning.
To achieve these three main goals, settings may first need to change their own attitudes towards being active. Use the sets of questions below as starting points for assessing current attitudes and practice and reflecting on changes that may be needed.
Changing attitudes
As a person
* Do you see exercise as fun, or something to be avoided?
* Do you lead an active life?
* Do you undertake journeys by car that you could easily do on foot?
* Are you aware of the many short- and long-term benefits of being fit?
As a practitioner
* Are you aware of the importance of fitness to a child's holistic development and well-being?
* Do you give positive messages to the children about physical activity?
* Are you a willing participant in children's physical play?
As a setting
* Do you see outdoor play for children as a treat or an entitlement? Time spent outdoors is perhaps the most important factor influencing how active young children are.
* Do you take into account the limited opportunities that children may have for playing outdoors while they are at home?
* Do you give children free-flow access between the indoors and outdoors, or have you plans to develop this?
* Could the layout of the indoors be improved to give children greater freedom of movement?
* Are you apprehensive about children's safety and fearful of parents' and carers' reactions to children appearing overly boisterous?
* Do you encourage children to take part in the daily routines of the setting, such as sweeping the floor?
Planning: Foundation Stage
* Do you place greater emphasis on fostering such skills as reading than on physical play?
* Do you plan activities that offer varying degrees of challenge for young movers? Boys, particularly, need more opportunities for physical play.
* Do the physical activities that you offer children have an emphasis on enjoyment over competition?
* Do you talk to children regularly about the effects that exercise has on their body? For example, do you ask questions such as 'What is happening to your heart now?' 'How you do you feel when you are skipping?' 'Can you show me a way to make your heart beat really fast?'
* Do you incorporate a wide range of gross motor activities into your long-, medium- and short-term plans for both indoors and outside? (See box.) For example, in your long-term plans, do you plan opportunities for physical activity in all areas of provision, such as: engaging in energetic role play outdoors; making body shapes in maths activities; acting out boisterous action songs in your music area? Do you make the most of opportunities for physical development in your medium-term plans? Take, for example, seasonal activities: in spring, do the children jump like frogs? In summer, do they make shadow shapes and run to escape their shadow? In autumn, do they pile up leaves, and find out how many leaves they can collect in a minute? And in winter, do they move around as on slippery ice? In your short-term plans, do you provide opportunities for physical activity that stem from children's current interests?
Under-threes
Don't forget the setting's youngest children. Many settings offer far too little opportunity for them to be active. Consider:
* Do you have an area in the outdoors especially for the under-threes?
* Do you plan a wide variety of outdoor activities for babies and toddlers throughout the year?
REFERENCES
* Corbin, CB, Pangrazi, RP & Welk, GJ (1994) Towards an understanding of appropriate physical activity levels for youth. Physical Activity and Fitness Research Digest Series 1(8).
* Doherty, J & Bailey, RB (2003) Supporting physical development and physical education in the early years. Buckingham: Open University Press
* Health Education Authority (1997) Young people and physical activity: Promoting better practice. London: HEA.
USEFUL WEBSITES
* www.active.org.uk (website of former Health Education Authority)
* www.bbc.co.uk/ education/schools/
* www.schools. channel4.com/
* www.cbhf.net (British Heart Foundation, new children's website)
WORKING WITH PARENTS
Explain to parents and carers:
* The scale of the obesity epidemic, its causes and their responsibility in averting or tackling the problem
* How physical fitness can help children stop becoming overweight
* That attitudes to physical activity are learned in children's first five years, and that children readily adopt their parents' lifestyles. The more active the parent, the more active the child
* That confining babies and young children to play pens, strollers and car seats may be detrimental to their physical development.
Suggest:
* Physical activities that they can do with their children both indoors and outside (see box)
* Making the most of the outdoors by, for example, walking to destinations whenever possible, such as the local shops
* Making regular trips to the local swimming pool and parks.
GET ACTIVE
There is a wide variety of gross motor skills activities that settings can offer Foundation Stage children and share with parents and carers.
For example, provide or organise:
* playground markings such as shapes and lines to jump in and walk along, hopscotch grids, mazes, footprints, stepping stones, snakes and ladders and clocks
* swings, rope ladders and climbing frames
* slides
* wheeled toys, trikes and bikes
* tunnels
* poles and beams to balance on
* obstacle courses
* pathways to follow around apparatus
* treasure hunts
* kite-flying
* dolls' prams to push around
* running, skipping and chasing games
* parachute games
* games using small equipment, such as large dice, hoops, quoits, balls and bats
* games such as Follow My Leader and Musical Statues
* moving in different ways and on different parts of their bodies, such as stamping, hopping, walking on tiptoe or on all fours
* action songs and rhymes, such as 'Incy Wincy Spider' and 'London Bridge is Falling Down'
* acting out such stories as 'The Enormous Turnip' and 'Jack and the Beanstalk'
* dance, using stimuli such as bubbles, spirals, patterns, rhymes and stories
* role play offering plenty of opportunity for movement.
FURTHER INFORMATION
* Exercising Muscles and Minds by Marjorie Ouvry (National Children's Bureau, 9.50, tel: 020 7843 6029)
* Outdoor Play in the Early Years - Management and Innovation by Helen Bilton (David Fulton Publishers, 16.50)
* National Healthy School Standard. Advice on becoming healthier schools.
Contact the co-ordinator on 020 7413 1929.
* 'All about outdoor learning' by Marjorie Ouvry (Nursery World, 5 April 2001)
* 'All about physical development' by Judith Stevens (Nursery World, 5 September 2002)
* 'Inside out' and 'Outer space', two-part series on planning for the outdoors by Jane Drake (Nursery World, 10 April, 5 June 2003)
* Under-threes and the outdoors by Lena Engel will be published in Nursery World on 29 April 2004.
