Five skills for holistic development
Because children’s growth and development are beautifully complex and cannot easily be broken down into neat divisions, we choose to highlight foundational skills that allow children to become creative, engaged lifelong learners. These skills build on children’s natural affinity for exploring their surroundings, creating and expressing ideas.
Emotional skills
Understand, manage and express emotions by building self-awareness and handling impulses, as well as staying motivated and confident in the face of difficulties.
Cognitive skills
Concentration, problem solving and flexible thinking by learning to tackle complex tasks and building effective strategies to identify solutions.
Physical skills
Being physically active, understanding movement and space through practicing sensory-motor skills, developing spatial understanding and nurturing an active and healthy body.
Social skills
Collaborate, communicate and understand other people’s perspectives through sharing ideas, negotiating rules and building empathy.
Creative skills
Coming up with ideas, expressing them and transforming them into reality by creating associations, symbolising and representing ideas and providing meaningful experiences for others.
Knowing how to read, write and do maths is still important for children to take part in the world. But it is vital to apply a holistic approach to children’s learning and development, recognising a broader set of skills that underpin learning for life.
Corporate publication
What we mean by: Learning through play
In this leaflet, we share our view of play as an important vehicle for children’s learning and about how playful experiences support children in developing the skills to serve them, their communities and society through a lifetime.
Learning through play
Characteristics of playful experiences
We say there are five characteristics of playful experiences that support deeper learning.
