Find Your Footing with The Little Gym

The Little Gym encourages children’s cognitive, physical, and emotional development before they enter school. When school starts, the structured learning that takes place supports what is happening in the classroom. As your child will be starting school in September, I wanted to let you know about how continuing to attend classes with us will support your child’s entry into formal education.

Here are a few questions that parents often ask us:

If my child is learning skills at school why bother coming to the gym as well?
Our fun-based approach to learning at The Little Gym is the ideal foundation for children entering reception. Our pre-school curriculum is specifically designed to reinforce what is happening in the classroom. The fact that this is taking place in the gym environment particularly helps with kinaesthetic learning (learning through doing). The Little Gym activities improve and maintain core strength and upper limb strength which is an essential foundation for skills that the school curriculum will demand such as handwriting, tolerating sitting at a desk and maintaining attention. In our experience the reinforcement that takes place in the gym helps children stay ahead of the game at school. This enables them to experience more success and thus further building their self-confidence. This confidence will be a major factor in them reaching their full potential whether at school or at home.

Will my child be overwhelmed by doing so much?
Today’s children are very busy children and yet they are not moving enough research has shown. It is also well known that children thrive on routine. As they start school much of their normal life routine will change. If they continue to attend the gym they will at least have one constant factor that they know and recognize. You will likely have noticed that our class structure stays the same week on week with different skills and activities slotted into it. This is to give the children this continuity.

Will my child be too tired?
Many parents are concerned about this and in our experience children come to the gym and it serves to energise them. Movement is the brain’s fuel. The Little Gym activities offer intense movement through the joints (i.e pushing and pulling, jumping, running) which has a regulating effect on the central nervous system. In other words it gives them ta chance for children to let off steam at the end of the school day in a structured activity

If there is a particularly heavy week at school we encourage parents to cancel their class and make it up another week. If you would like to allow your child to ease into school without other activities we will happily cancel your first 2 or 3 weeks of classes to allow child to get settled at school and then resume classes when school has got going. You can then make up the missed classes any time before the semester end in February or even in the Christmas holidays by coming to one of our 3 hour holiday camp sessions.

Won’t my child be repeating what happens in their P.E. lessons at school in their sessions at the gym?

Due to the amount that is squeezed into the national curriculum unfortunately time in school for P.E. is limited, on average primary school children participate in only 127 minutes of P.E. per week. The activities at The Little Gym are designed to include movement that improves stamina, strength, bilateral coordination, hand-eye coordination and balance all of which are required for for good performance in PE and other sports activities at school. Coming to our Pre school/Kindergarten classes the gym with our 1:6 student to instructor ratio and bespoke facility gives children an intensive hour on top of what they are doing at school which will support their physical development and confidence.

Many of the things we do at The Little Gym help to prepare children for school. They learn to take turns in an obstacle course, as well as listen to and follow directions from musical cues and teachers. Following instructions also helps the child with visual and auditory memory as well as sequencing abilities. Children also acquire verbal skills with songs and by responding to questions during opening circles and draw their learning together at the end of the class in closing circles. We help children build confidence and celebrate their victories so they feel encouraged to try to accomplish more.

http://wimbledon.thelittlegym.co.uk/blog/2024/05/31/starting-school