REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER Principal’s Message
25th November 2022
By Mrs Simone Cooke
Dear Parents, An important component of a balanced early learning programme is building our children’s physical fitness and gross motor skills. Offering our children regular unstructured and physically demanding outdoor play ensures that they are developing healthy habits that sustain them through life. A strong body of research indicates that providing children with regular burst of physical activity, not only improves their concentration skills but also allows the brain to recharge. Each day our teachers set up a range of gross motor activities that encourage children to be physically active in the playground. Additionally, at Reddam, we provide the children with a range of intentional classes such as My Gym gymnastic drama and movement classes and Yoga lessons to build and develop their Fundamental Movement Skills. These skills are important building blocks for more complex skills that children will develop throughout their lives as they participate in games, sports and recreational activities. These skills include, stability skills such as stretching, bending, twisting and balancing and locomotor skills such as jumping, running, hopping, galloping, skipping and side stepping. Additionally, children benefit from developing manipulative skills of catching, underarm and overarm throwing, kicking, striking and stationary dribbling. Each week in our classes our teachers focus upon intentionally teaching of one of these skills. The earlier these skills are introduced and practiced the more competent and confident children become at incorporating these into their own play.
REDDAM EARLY LEARNING SCHOOL | ST LEONARDS NEWSLETTER
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