Nursery World - Enabling Environments: Outdoors

In the third part of her series on Newham’s Outdoors and Active programme, Julie Mountain finds out how it has involved parents and carers to create a family culture of movement and physicality

While there is much that qualified, experienced and professional early years teams can do to improve children’s health and well-being through movement, long-term changes will only be sustained where there is a well-established culture of physical activity. It’s therefore vital that families and carers understand the role that movement and physicality have in children’s health, well-being and cognition, and are equipped to promote movement-based outdoor play beyond the setting.

Education professionals have long understood the connection between physical and neurological development. What’s less clear is how much parents and carers understand. The phrase ‘children don’t come with instructions’ is often heard but, in fact, for early years practitioners, they do come with instructions in the form of training, continuing professional development, peer mentoring and experience. The trick is sharing this knowledge and expertise with parents in a way that will motivate them to continue the good work.

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