Some Words From Our Owner, Teacher Fiona

People often come to a trial at our town-centre gymnastics setting hoping that their children will “burn off” some energy. What they are doing in class is quite the opposite. Just like tiger cubs need to play and tumble and roll in order to hone their natural abilities to hunt, our children need to explore their world, physically, before they can understand it cerebrally. So, a parent might come to us and say, “how do I make sure my child can read well?” And we would answer, “give them lots of activities that help them fix an object on the retina, give them opportunities to eye-track, encourage hand-eye co-ordination, focus on their physical balance, through stimulation of the vestibular system.”

A parent might wonder, “how can I make my child sit still and listen?” We would offer plenty of opportunity for safe risk taking, rough-housing, physical pushing and pulling. The ultimate in control for a child is sitting still-but this doesn’t just magically happen. Children need to explore their worlds physically before they can focus cognitively. And their cognitive world is built through the physical. It’s why you’ll never hear of a child wanting to leave the playground before an adult! They don’t just enjoy physical stimulation, like tigers in the jungle, they need it.

Often parents ask when their child will hit certain milestones like being able to write.Knowing how much pressure to exert when writing or drawing is not learnt in a classroom, it’s learnt in a playground. It’s learnt climbing trees in a forest. And it’s learnt at The Little Gym.

Wrap this all up in sessions that are fun, imaginative and playful, in small classes with the same teacher each week where they develop incredible teacher/student bonds, and high ratios of teachers to children meaning theyget the attention they deserve to hone their skills,and you have, whatwe call, “three dimensional learning”. When your little one comes to The Little Gym they get so much more than a generic gymnastics class; using an ever-evolving curriculum inspired by Occupational Therapists and based on over forty years in the field of child-development, childrenget to learn about the world through physical exploration, they get to grow cognitively through problem solving, and they try on for size what it feels like to turn take, to help clear up during class, to control their impulses, to listen to their teacher and follow instructions.

It may sound like a lofty ambition, but at The Little Gymthey will also learn to become better citizens of the world.