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| Feature | No.65 October 2013 |

Helping young Children in the early Years to foster a lifelong Love of being physically active

Angela Newport

Abstract

This paper sets out the importance of promoting physical literacy in young children and then looks at the background for the development of the British Heart Foundation National Centre for Physical Activity & Health resource Early movers: Helping under 5’s live active and healthy lives. The paper finally reflects on current feedback from centres using the resource.

Introduction

Developing physical literacy in the early years is the foundation for learning to love being physically active on a regular basis and continuing to be active throughout life.

Physical literacy has recently been described as a disposition in which individuals have…

‘the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for maintaining purposeful physical pursuits/activities throughout the lifecourse.1’

It is important that early years practitioners, (as well as parents and carers) understand the importance of this physical literacy journey beginning from the day a child is born. They also need to be equipped with the practical skills, knowledge and understanding to nurture movement development and help children make progress on their journey. In addition they need to be able to develop children’s confidence to move well by facilitating the learning and practice of new movement patterns and skills and to encourage a love of being physically active in the first years of life.

Practitioners can do this by encouraging a love of movement from day one, by creating positive enabling environments and facilitating a variety of movement opportunities on a daily basis. This will give children rewarding physical activity experiences, stimulating the learning of key movement skills and ensuring the development of children’s self-esteem and confidence in their movement abilities. Practitioners will also be helping children to recognise the enjoyment they feel from physical activity and fuelling a desire and motivation to participate in more physical activity as they grow and develop.

There is some evidence to suggest that physical activity patterns established during early childhood (0-5.9 years) lead to a greater chance of physical activity being maintained between the ages of 6-11 years (Jones, RA et al, 2013) 2. This would suggest that it is important to establish a high level of physical activity at the earliest age in order to encourage activity patterns later in childhood, not only for promoting good health and wellbeing, but also in terms of laying foundations for a desire to want to continue being active throughout life.

In the section that follows the rationale for the development of a British Heart Foundation resource ‘Early movers: Helping under 5’s live active and healthy lives’ will be outlined. The section will also highlight the key features of the resource, set out its aims, provide information on how it can be accessed and consider how best it might be used to assist early years practitioners lay the foundations for physical literacy for the children in their care.

Background to the development of Early movers

In 2010, the British Heart Foundation National Centre for Physical Activity & Health (BHFNC)* was involved in reviewing the latest scientific evidence on physical activity and health in order to update the physical activity guidelines across the four UK home countries. Emerging evidence suggested that physical activity is important for health, physical and psychological development in young children. As a consequence physical activity guidelines for early years (0-5 years) were developed for the first time and published alongside guidelines for other age groups, as part of the four UK Chief Medical Officers report4.

In addition, the BHFNC carried out a national audit of physical activity provision in Children’s Centres and nurseries in the summer of 20105. This audit (responses - 192 Children’s Centres and 60 nurseries), had the following aims:

- to establish a national picture of active play provision in Children’s Centres and nurseries across the UK

- to identify any gaps in provision and inform how best the BHFNC could support early years settings in their provision and practice.

Key findings showed that there was a large variation in the amount of outdoor play provision being offered on a daily basis, ranging from continuous free-flow between the indoor and outdoor environments to 2 x 20 minute play sessions outside. In some settings it became apparent that young children had limited opportunities throughout the day for movement and free play. In addition, the audit highlighted an apparent lack of confidence among early years practitioners to set up and facilitate active play sessions especially among those working with the 0-2 age group. Without this confidence themselves, practitioners will find it difficult to support children to develop their confidence to learn new movement patterns and this will also limit their early physical literacy experience.

A full report of the audit finding can be downloaded at: www.bhfactive.org.uk

To assist with this confidence, practitioners highlighted in the audit that they would welcome physical activity resources in the form of booklets, posters and leaflets to help them in their daily activities and also to help in engaging with parents to promote active play.

The audit confirmed what the Centre had been hearing anecdotally; that there was currently no national guidance and support to assist practitioners to create positive enabling environments to facilitate children’s physical activity and foster a love of movement. This fact together with advice from the BHFNC’s National Early Years Advisory Group and the need for some exemplification of the UK Physical Activity Guidelines, all helped inform the development of a new early years physical activity guide, Early movers: Helping under 5’s live active and healthy lives.

Early movers: Helping under 5’s live active & healthy lives

The rationale for developing an early years physical activity guide was to help support early years practitioners:

- to understand the importance of early movement opportunities in helping young children’s early physical development

- to highlight the potential of physical activity for impacting on other aspects of learning and development

- to have the ideas and confidence to organise positive enabling environments in which young children can thrive, be appropriately challenged to develop progressive movement patterns and develop a love of being active.

In November 2012 the BHF published an early years physical activity guide entitled Early movers 5. The guide is designed to help early years practitioners plan and organise physically active play environments for children under five which will set them positively on their physical literacy journey. The guide provides information and ideas on planning, use of indoor and outdoor play spaces, as well as practical activities and ideas for getting parents and carers involved. It also considers practitioner interactions to facilitate physical activity and looks at the close relationship between physical activity and other aspects of learning, such as cognitive, language, personal, social and emotional development. It is intended for use by early years settings who provide care to children from birth up to the age of five and can be used by all providers, irrespective of the time children spend in their care. The seven individual booklets are designed to be used as a ‘dip-in’ resource and reflect the areas from the audit practitioners identified as most needed.

What’s included in the resource?

- Seven booklets titled:

1. Introduction to this guide – how to use, different elements covered in rest of resource, resource bank and glossary.

2. Introduction to physical activity in the early years – background information on the evidence for the importance of early movement opportunities, encouraging physical literacy and reducing sedentary behaviour, the UK Physical Activity guidelines, physical development and how the guide supports the various UK early years curriculums.

3. Planning and organisation for early years managers – specifically written for early years managers to help them reflect on current provision and practices. Includes tools and ideas to help adopt a whole setting approach to promoting more movement opportunities.

4. Getting the best from your environment – practical ideas for maximising outdoor and indoor play areas and ideas for reducing sedentary behaviour.

5. Practical ideas for physically active play –the largest section and provides progressive practical activities and movement ideas from birth up to five years of age.

6. Getting children involved – looks at the role of the practitioner and different types of interactions required to help children to get actively engaged in physical activity and also considers inclusion.

7. Getting parents and carers involved – practical ideas for settings to engage with parents and carers to encourage more physical activity at home and during times when children are away from the setting.

- Six early movers posters – for use within the setting and include key motivational messages around the importance of promoting early movement opportunities.

- Booklet of stickers – for use around the setting and on play equipment

- One copy of ‘Help your baby move and play every day’ and ‘Help your child move and play every day’ – leaflets to help practitioners explain to parents them importance of early movement opportunities and provides some simple ideas to try at home.

- One height chart – For parents and includes early development milestones.

The leaflets and height chart have been included as tools in this resource to help practitioners engage with parents and carers more easily about the importance of encouraging movement in the early years. It is recognised that parents and carers have the greatest impact on a young child’s early life experiences and therefore educating and supporting them with ideas is of paramount importance.

How to access Early movers

These resources are available to download at: http://www.bhf.org.uk/childrens-resources/babies-and-nursery.aspx

Impact

Since its launch in November 2012, formal written and informal verbal feedback from practitioners using the resource has been positive. However, it’s important to consider whether a resource alone is enough to really influence practitioner practice. The BHFNC have therefore been involved in a number of on-going evaluation projects which are seeking to assess the impact of early years physical activity training, based around the Early movers resource, on increasing practitioner knowledge of early years physical activity and the skills needed to create enabling environments which encourage more movement opportunities.

National-based project

BHF Olympic Legacy training

Following the successful 2012 Olympic Games in London, the British Heart Foundation was keen to support a legacy for children and young people which focused on increasing young children’s sport and physical activity participation.

Early indications from the evaluation carried out on the training days suggest that the training was successful in familiarising participants with the Early movers resource, increasing their understanding of physical activity in the early years and developing their confidence to extend the movement opportunities for the babies and children in their care. This is essential if practitioners are to successfully develop their knowledge and understanding of how to promote physical literacy.

A full independent evaluation of this training programme is currently being undertaken by the Institute of Youth Sport, based at Loughborough University and will provide more detailed findings.

Locally-based projects

Eat better, Move More

This project is a joint physical activity and nutrition programme with the Children’s Food Trust and was commissioned by Shropshire Public Health to improve nutrition and physical activity provision within early years settings throughout the county of Shropshire.

Two successive training days, (one nutrition and the other physical activity) were delivered to early years development workers in November 2012. Following the training participants were expected to cascade the information to at least two settings and assist them in completing baseline and six-month follow up audits, which assessed physical activity provision and practice.

The BHFNC is currently evaluating the impact of the physical activity element of the training on early years provision and practice in the settings. They are also assessing the impact of the Early movers resource, around which the training programme was devised.

Leicester City project

This project was commissioned by the Public Health team at NHS Leicester City and Leicester City Council and its purpose was to provide training and resources to support independent nurseries in their promotion of early movement opportunities specifically to the 0-2 age group.

The BHFNC have been involved in evaluating this project with a primary aim of assessing changes in knowledge and provision of early movement opportunities within the settings involved in the project. In addition, the BHFNC sought to assess the effectiveness of the BHF’s Early movers resource for addressing training and informational needs.

Conclusion

It is difficult at this stage to fully assess impact of the training and resources as a number of projects are still on-going. Anecdotally feedback has been very positive and would suggest that there is a niche for this resource as gaps were clearly identified in the national audit of nurseries and Children’s Centres. It is true that the Early movers resource provides all the necessary information to guide practitioners to change their practice if necessary, but empowering them to make changes may require some additional support such as reflective cluster meetings or mentoring.

Findings from these projects will be useful in helping to make some judgements about the usefulness of early years training on the resource for influencing practitioner knowledge and practices. However, what these evaluations may not be able to do, is to shed light on whether training is necessary for a resource to make an impact on helping practitioners’ understanding of physical literacy and their skills to organise and facilitate enabling environments which promote the development of physical literacy.

*The BHFNC is funded by the British Heart Foundation to support the practice of physical activity promotion in the UK by developing the evidence base, translating research and disseminating practice based evidence across the lifecourse. Visit our website for lots of useful resources, conference information and for details of our information service at: www.bhfactive.org.uk

References

1. British Heart Foundation. Early movers: Helping under 5’s live active and healthy lives. British Heart Foundation; November 2012. www.bhf.org.uk/children’s-resources/babies-and-nursery.aspx

2. British Heart Foundation National Centre for Physical Activity & Health. BHFNC National Physical Activity audit of Children’s Centres and Nurseries. January 2011. www.bhfactive.org.uk

3. Department of Health. Start active, Stay active. A report on physical activity from the four home countries' Chief Medical Officers. The Department of Health; 2011.
   (www.gov.uk/government/publications)

4. Jones, RA, Hinkley, T, Okey AD, SalmonJ. (2013). Tracking physical activity and sedentary behaviour in childhood: a systematic review.

5. Am J.Prev Med 2013; 44 (6):651-658

6. Whitehead, M. (2013). www.physical-literacy.org.uk

Contact

Angela Newport
British Heart Foundation National Centre for Physical Activity & Health

http://www.icsspe.org/