Developmental Movement Play

Encouragingly, the percentage of children achieving a good level of development at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage in Ipswich was in line with national average. However, the data showed that children from disadvantaged backgrounds consistently achieved lower levels of development than their non-disadvantaged peers. Disadvantaged children in Ipswich were also less likely to achieve an exceeded level in many of the individual early learning goals (ELGs). 

School leaders reported that not all children begin school having developed the behaviours they needed to learn and fulfil their potential, such as agency, resilience and self-regulation. Early years providers in the Ipswich Opportunity Area were interested in the link between physical development and the key areas of early development – Communication and Language and Personal, Social and Emotional Development 

Developmental Movement Play is a contemporary approach to supporting babies’ and children’s physical development – aiming for confident, expressive, skilled and happy bodies. The programme is recognised nationwide and has been linked to a variety of early years research. 

One practitioner from every early years setting, within the Ipswich Opportunity Area, was invited to a fully funded two day course with Penny Greenland MBE, who developed the course in 1989. 

Staff now have a much greater understanding on how to give children the opportunity to use the physical environment safely and communicate in a different way. Settings noted an impact on children’s progress in communication and personal social and emotional development, attributed to children having more opportunities to ‘express themselves through movement, work together to help each other and explore the way their bodies move. 

Some pre-schools, such as Heathlands, used training grant funding to expand their development movement play provision further, and took part in the Jabadao “Feeling of Me” research project that tracks the impact the programme is having on their children. 

We asked participants about their confidence is supporting children’s physical development; 86% of respondents rated their confidence level following the training as ‘much higher’ and 14% rated it as ‘higher’.