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What is Holistic Learning in Early Years?

Holistic learning is about developing all aspects of development including physical, mental, emotional and social dimensions. This is crucial in the children’s early years because their early learning and experiences shape their development and future. Although luck, later education and opportunities, connections and other factors still play a role, still the children’s early years have a huge influence on their potential and future.

What is holistic learning in early years?

There has been an emphasis on holistic development in the recent years and decades because parents and experts realised that it’s not all about academics. It’s not enough to be good at math or science to become successful. There are other important dimensions and factors that play a huge role in one’s success (e.g. which the Early Years Learning Framework already addresses).

For example, effective communication is one key to bringing people together and producing results. Most worthwhile efforts and huge missions require people working together and making them understand the ultimate goal and what’s in it for them. It’s also about understanding other people’s point of view especially if they’re coming from different departments.

To gain that important social skill and understanding, it’s important for children to learn that or get exposed to similar scenarios during their early years. This means their playtime should include getting along with peers or working together to accomplish a certain task. This will help build their confidence and become comfortable in such group scenarios. It’s a foundational experience that they can lean on when they finally get to work on bigger challenges at school or at work.

Holistic means complete, interconnected and interdependent. When it comes to child development, an improvement in their social skills can also mean an improvement in their literacy and numeracy skills. That’s because they will feel more comfortable in classrooms and learning together with other children. This also has emotional benefits because of the comfort and safety they always feel. It’s also likely that children will be more physically active during playtime because they have that self-esteem and that they’re able to get along well with other children.

In this modern, complex and interconnected world, the only approach now is to be holistic and integrated. Specialisation is still important when it comes to technical skills. But for overall professional development, it’s crucial to consider all aspects. This can start during a child’s early years as he/she gains important foundational experiences for his/her confidence.