Supporting physical development in early childhood

Introduction

Welcome to Supporting physical development in early childhood. In this course, you will learn the importance of encouraging children to take part in physical activity and the impact doing so has on their physical and mental health and wellbeing.

This course draws on research and expertise from academics from early childhood, sport and fitness at The Open University and Active Matters, and Angela Baker, Children's & Health Inequalities, Coventry City Council. Figures used in the course are based on UK statistics.

Watch Viv Bennett, the Chief Nurse and Director for Maternity in Early Years at Public Health England, talk about our most precious asset, our children, and how their physical development in the early years of life matters to their health throughout life.

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Transcript: Video 1

VIV BENNETT:

Hello, everybody. My name is Viv Bennett and I'm the chief nurse and director for maternity and early years at Public Health England. And I'm really thrilled to have been asked to do an introduction for this fabulous course that you're about to embark on.

In my role as the director for maternity and early years, I'm very well aware that what happens to us in childhood sets the foundations for health and wellbeing throughout our lives. And even more that what happens in the early years impacts on a happy and healthy childhood. So the work that you do is absolutely vital to the national effort to give our children the best start in life.

One of the things that we've learned over the last few years is the benefits of physical activity in health and wellbeing at all ages. From the very smallest babies when we start to give them tummy time and to support their head and neck movements by watching things through to the toddler age groups, really, really important. It is now recommended that the youngest children, for example, toddlers 1 to 2, do have 180 active minutes a day. And that can be a variety of things. Obviously, for the youngest of that age range, learning to stand up, learning to walk, crawling around, playing. And then as children come towards their second and third birthdays, lots of outdoor play, lots of movement, learning to ride a bike, et cetera, really important, and really important throughout childhood. Not only actually for physical development but for children's mental and emotional health as well.

Learning to play, learning to be outside with other children, all really important things for the happy, healthy childhood that we want our children to have. And, of course, conversely, if children aren't active, they're more likely to run into problems with their health. And we know that we have too many children who are overweight and could become obese in this country. And we really need to make sure that all our children are active to try to avoid some of those complications.

And, of course, everybody who's connected with children has a role to play. Parents' input is vital. And you and your role and me and mine can support families to help their children to be active, particularly perhaps where children have a disability or require extra assistance to actually have that activity.

For all children, the early years workforce is absolutely critical in ensuring that we can use physical activity to help all children have the best start in life. And this course will give you some further knowledge and some further insights into just how those processes work to make sure children can thrive, and also some ideas for how to incorporate physical activity into play.

So thank you again for all the fabulous work that you do with our very youngest children. And I do hope that you enjoy this course and that you find it useful. And we can really work together to promote physical activity as a vital part of a happy, healthy childhood. Thank you.

End transcript: Video 1

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By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• identify the importance of movement skills to the overall health, wellbeing and development of young children
• explore the relationship between physical growth and development
• describe the body systems and their relationship to moving and learning
• identify the appropriate physical/movement activities for each age and stage of development from 0–5 years
• explore how parents and practitioners can work together to support the physical development of all children.

The authors of this course would like to learn more of the views of the learners.To help them do this, there is a pre-course survey [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] (press Ctrl + click on the link to open it in a new window) for you to complete if you wish. The information you provide will give the authors an insight into how helpful, interesting, and relevant the content of the course is to you. Thank you in advance for completing this pre-course survey. There is also a post-course survey at the end of the course.