6th July, 2016
At the AIESEP international conference in Laramie the AIESEP Early Years SIG organised its first one-day pre-conference seminar. Approximately 25 participants took part in intensive discussions. We heard interesting, multicultural perspectives and experiences from early years contexts. Len Almond (UK) presented the concept of purposeful physical play, Debra Vinci and colleagues (US) presented an intervention among early educators, Arja Sääkslahti (FIN) shed light on the ideology of Scandinavian day care, while Ingunn Fjortoft’s (NO) presentation focused on affordances in the outdoors. Boris Jidovtseff (BE) described excellent examples of how to modify indoor facilities for little children, Mary Vandermeulen (BE) outlined related principles for water environment and Christine De Martelaer (BE) addressed safety issues in water activities. At the end of an interesting and informative day there were group discussions around these topics.
The symposium identified many topics which require further discussions and clarification. There is a need for consensus regarding terminology – how to describe young children’s physical activity and day care systems as well as the age range of children in different cultures.
The AIESEP Early Years SIG will be involved in the CIAPSE 2 Congress (Children’s Physical Activity and Sport 2) in Jyvaskyla on January 26-28, 2017. The SIG team will organise a thematic meeting as a part of this congress. The topic of this symposium will be “PE in early years – what are the guidelines/curriculum and what are the practices?”
During AIESEP 2017, the SIG will also have a thematic session as a follow up to the CIAPSE 2 Congress. At future AIESEP conferences the Early Years SIG will plan a number of themed symposia regarding which all members of the SIG will be consulted.
