Overview
Understand why physical development is important to early years children.
Physical development resources
These resources will help you check your current curriculum meets the requirement of the revised physical development area of learning.
As you make changes to your curriculum consider what you want children to learn first and plan opportunities for them to achieve this.
What the early years foundation stage (EYFS) framework says about physical development
Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives.
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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 practise of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.