EYFS Best Practice: Prime time ... Physical Development

There has been a lot of debate about the order in which the Prime areas appear in the revised statutory framework for the EYFS and in the practice guidance, 'Development Matters'. Which is most fundamental to learning - communication and language (CL) or personal, social and emotional development PSED? It's important to remember that there are three Prime areas and that they are all, including physical development (PD), equally fundamental to young children's learning - and strongly interlinked.

So, let's put physical development first for a change. After all, without a physical body to house them, there would be no point in developing communication, emotional or social skills. There is a more serious point to be made here, however. There is so much more to physical development than just providing a healthy container for all the higher order learning and development. As Sally Goddard Blythe writes in The Well Balanced Child (2004), 'Physical expression is the very experience of life. Just as the brain controls the body, the body has much to teach the brain.' Through sensory experience and movement, the body is responsible for building and shaping the brain.