Educational Programme

Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, co-ordination and positional awareness through tummy time, crawling and play movement with both objects and adults. By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults can support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility.

Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well-being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination, which is later linked to early literacy. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practice of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.

Developmental Milestones

Children in reception will be learning to:

• Revise and refine the fundamental movement skills they have already acquired:
  • rolling
  • crawling
  • walking
  • jumping
  • running
  • hopping
  • skipping
  • climbing
• Progress towards a more fluent style of moving, with developing control and grace.
• Develop the overall body strength, co-ordination, balance and agility needed to engage successfully with future physical education sessions and other physical disciplines including dance, gymnastics, sport and swimming.
• Develop their small motor skills so that they can use a range of tools competently, safely and confidently. Suggested tools: pencils for drawing and writing, paintbrushes, scissors, knives, forks and spoons.
• Use their core muscle strength to achieve a good posture when sitting at a table or sitting on the floor.
• Combine different movements with ease and fluency.
• Confidently and safely use a range of large and small apparatus indoors and outside, alone and in a group.
• Develop overall body-strength, balance, co-ordination and agility.
• Further develop and refine a range of ball skills including: throwing, catching, kicking, passing, batting, and aiming.
• Develop confidence, competence, precision and accuracy when engaging in activities that involve a ball.
• Develop the foundations of a handwriting style which is fast, accurate and efficient.
• Further develop the skills they need to manage the school day successfully:
  • lining up and queuing
  • mealtimes