Fit 2 LearnOptimising Cognitive Development

Fit 2 Learn CIC: Registered Community Interest Company No: 8304686 Registered Office: 2 Ledbury Road, Croydon CR0 1EP.

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About Us

Fit 2 Learn CIC: Registered Community Interest Company No: 8304686 Registered Office: 2 Ledbury Road, Croydon CR0 1EP.

Fit 2 Learn is a Community Interest Company that seeks to empower communities and individuals in Croydon.

Through regular, patient practice of simple exercises, everyone is able to learn to fully control their own brains: to become effective learners and to move through life in a calm, measured manner.

Our long-term goal is defined by the question:“What developmental journey does a child need to undertake to ensure that they have the capacity to thrive in a knowledge based economy?”

This translates into the academic target: “How does a child need to develop in order to be capable of achieving 7 A/A* GCSE’s including Maths, English, three Sciences and a Modern Foreign Language? Hence, be at least a high Level 5 learner at the end of Key Stage 2.”

We seek to enable everyone to master the widest range of their their cognitive skills.

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Meet the Team

Human Development

Games & Exercises

Research

Meet the Team

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Charlotte Davies has both a commercial and a teaching background. A specialist in Economics, Business, Enterprise and experiential learning, Charlotte has spent over 20 years in teaching and education consultancy work trying to understand fully why for so many students there is a big gap between their oral and tactile skills compared to their written skills.

John Clingan worked for Shell for over 20 years and is a certified IT project manager. He has managed multi-million dollar projects with teams from around the world and has varied experience with IT infrastructure and data management. John is a Mathematics graduate from Kings College, London University, and, like Charlotte, lives in Croydon, UK.

Daleen Smith is a Cognitive Visual Integration Therapist. The work of Fit 2 Learn is informed by Daleen’s practices and expertise. Daleen’s firm have worked in South Africa and the UK for over 20 years, correcting learning difficulties in children and adults. Read more about Daleen’s work in Charlotte’s academic paper.

Human Development

Gross Motor Skills

Language & Auditory

Processing

Fine Motor Skills

Fit 2 Learn CIC registered Office: 2 Ledbury Road Croydon. Company registration number

Visual Processing

Executive Functions

of the Brain

Staying Young

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The human brain is widely regarded as the most complex thing in the known universe.

A mature human brain takes nearly a quarter of a century to develop fully - it is a slow process.

“The human brain is like 100 billion computers all processing simultaneously, each computer does not necessarily work very fast, but it is the massive parallel processing of the human brain that is spectacular. “ John Gabrielli, MIT, USA. (2011)

Fernandez and Goldberg (2011) identified the key functions of the brain which we have arranged into a developmental hierarchy:1. Motor Skills2. Language and Auditory Processing3. Visual and Spatial Processing, Perception, Memory, Attention4. Executive Functions

According to Dr. Arthur Kramer and Dr. Elizabeth Zelinski (2011), the key pillars for maintaining a healthy brain are:5. Nutrition6. Physical Exercise7. Stress Management8. Mental Enrichment9. Maintaining Emotional Connections10. Sleep

Gross Motor Skills

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Gross motor skills are a vital stage in human development. Many basic learning difficulties can be sorted out just by getting these muscle and cognitive links sorted out.

By the time a child is 3½ years old, he should be able to control all his large muscles - the left brain controlling the right side of the body and vice versa. He should also be able to support the trunk of his body.

If these skills are not properly developed it can block development of fine motor skills and cognitive sensory links particularly vision. (Children need to be able to support their heads all day at school in an upright position in order to be able to use both of their eyes together properly).

This is not Brain Gym. If a child has a problem you cannot solve it in a big group; they need one on one coaching to develop their skills. A greater understanding of this area of work can be found on the following links:

Sally Blythe, Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology

The British Association of Sports and Exercise Medicine (BASEM)

Activities and Exercises

• Simon Says

You can incorporate the following activities in Simon Says:

• Skipping• Sit Ups• Angels in the Snow• Balancing• Crawling

Fine Motor Skills

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Fine motor skills are required for control of all the small muscles in the body, from winking to learning to control a pencil.

Children need many varied and fun activities to develop really good fine motor skills. It becomes very tedious if all the focus is just on one skill, e.g. writing. Conversely writing is tedious and painful if fine motor skills are not properly developed.

Fine motor skills cannot develop properly until gross motor skills have been developed.

Fine Motor Skills Activities & Exercises

1. Get the paper in the bin!

2. Paper planes

3. Origami

4. Small muscles in the face

5. Small muscles around the eyes

Language & Auditory Processing

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Cognitive auditory pathways are hardwired in at birth.

Children should become skilled over their early years in using their cognitive auditory pathways.

There are two parts to auditory processing:

a. Hearingb. Processing the sounds and making sense of them

Ear infections and noisy environments can impair both parts of this process. Early auditory problems can trigger delays in other areas of cognitive sensory development. For example, sounds attract a child’s attention and stimulate the use of its visual system.

Most children are predominantly auditory learners until at least 9 years old. In those early years, children need opportunities to repeatedly hear many and varied sounds in order to develop and fine tune their listening skills.

Problems with auditory skills can be identified through listening to the quality of a child’s speech.

Physical problems with ear functions need to be sorted out by a specialist doctor. If there are no physical problems with a child’s hearing then they may need to learn to process sounds more effectively.

The leaders in this field are Tomatis Therapy

Games to encourage language and auditory skills development.

Nursery rhymes and early years songs Choral SpeakingMusic and movement Chinese WhispersBooks and reading out loud Listing gamesPlayground rhymes I spy

Visual Processing

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Vision is in two parts:

1. Seeing with your eyes2. Processing what you see - cognitive vision - i.e. what is going on in the brain.

In the UK, cognitive vision is the responsibility of Behavioural Optometrists. It is advisable to work with a Behavioural Optometrist, but there are very few working with the NHS.

Cognitive visual pathways develop over the first 9 years of life. Once a child’s cognitive visual pathways are developed they can then start to become skilled in their use - a child needs to practise cognitive visual skills in order to be able to master them fully.

Each visual pathway to the brain has a matter of a few weeks’ “window of opportunity” to develop, e.g. the ability to differentiate horizontal from vertical. If the child misses that “window” then without specific corrective therapy they will not develop that skill.

In a properly developed secondary student, 80% of learning is visual. If a student is not a visual learner they will have to work a lot harder than other students which will impact on their behaviour and energy levels. If a child does not develop good cognitive visual pathways they will be dependent on their auditory pathways and can become very disturbed in noisy environments.

To understand cognitive vision more fully, watch YouTube clips such as the following:

• Vision Therapy • Vision Therapy Saved My Life

A fuller understanding of the neurology of vision can be found at the MIT course on Psychology .

Exercises to improve the strength of the small muscles around the eyes.

Games to improve cognitive visual processing and identify potential problems.

Executive Functions of the Brain

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As children grow older they need to learn to control their behaviour and learn to delay their own gratification. If children do not learn these skills they will not be able to fit in socially and behaviourally.

Failure to develop these skills may indicate a variety of problems. Be patient; work with others to identify or eliminate obvious causes, for example:

• children who do not develop one sense properly often find learning difficult and they become frustrated

• tired or hungry children function less well than well-fed, rested children• noisy or distracting environments may undermine self-control

Games to develop executive functions of the brain

1. Blow football2. Bouncy Balls3. Juggling4. Chocolates - delayed gratification game5. Rush Hour6. Chinese Checkers7. Cheat8. Kite Flying9. Mixed-up Jigsaws10. Longer term enterprise education activities11. Management games and “Thinking fast, thinking slow”

Games and Exercises

Gross Motor Skills

Exercises

Fine Motor Skills

Exercises

Language & Auditory Games

Visual Processing

Games

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Games for Executive Function

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In education it has been understood for centuries that learning by doing is the most effective method of teaching.

The important features of classroom-based experiential learning are:

• Active rather than passive learning• Student-based rather than teacher-based learning• Subjective experiences and personal growth • Learning through evaluation and reflection • Perception-based rather than theory-based learning • Participative rather than memorization (rote) learning • Inductive rather than deductive learning • Exploration, invention and application

The advent of brain scans has allowed us to see that practice changes the pathways to the brain e.g. London taxi drivers develop the areas of their brains concerned with spatial planning as they learn the knowledge of London’s streets. All Fit 2 Learn activities involve experiential learning.

Programmes

Early Years Development

Key Stages 2,3 & 4

Enterprise Art

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Customised Courses

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We have developed programmes and courses for children of all ages as well as teachers, parents and carers.

We can also develop tailor-made courses for community groups, public and private organisations.

Contact us if you wish to discuss one of our existing programmes or would like to talk to us about developing a customised course or have any questions or comments.

Croydon Challenge 2014

Preparing for the Challenge

Skills to be Challenged in 2014

Entry form

Fit 2 Learn CIC registered Office: 2 Ledbury Road Croydon. Company registration number

“The human brain is like 100 billion computers….”

To get those computers working at their best you have to master skills so that you can do them without thinking.

In order to keep your brain working at its best you have to keep mastering new skills.

To help Croydon to develop its skills, we are challenging all schools, faith groups, companies and associations to master a new skill by April 2014.

In April, 2014, we will hold a grand festival of skills to celebrate the achievements and accomplishments across the Borough of Croydon.

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Contact

Contact Fit-2-Learn to find out more or to book a course.

Telephone: 020 8760 5037

Email: info@fit-2-learn.com

Address: 2, Ledbury Road, Croydon CR0 1EP

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Fit 2 Learn CIC registered Office: 2 Ledbury Road Croydon. Company registration number

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