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Holistic Development

Holistic development involves nurturing all aspects of a child, including other important aspects like executive functioning and sensory and motor development.

Last updated 29 May 2025

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Holistic development
What are the benefits?
How can you do it?
Resources

Holistic development

All the domains of development and learning are inter-connected and mutually reinforcing. Educators need to also recognise and develop other important aspects such as executive functioning (EF) skills and sensory and motor development. 

EF skills include three domains:

  • Working memory: This enables children to keep information in mind for later use.

  • Inhibitory control: This enables children to deliberately suppress impulsive actions, ignore distractions and temptation, and to pause and think before acting.

  • Cognitive flexibility: This enables children to think about something in multiple ways and take on different perspectives and approach an activity or solve a problem in more than one way. 

Sensory and motor development includes the following aspects:

  • Sense of balance (i.e., vestibular function): For example, the vestibular sense allows children to maintain balance so as to move confidently and stay upright when sitting and standing.

  • Sense of body position and movement in space (i.e., proprioceptive function): For example, the proprioceptive sense enables children to walk or kick without looking at their feet.

What are the benefits?

  • Enable children to learn positive behaviours and attitudes

  • Develop children’s readiness to learn

  • Help children to manage their emotions and make responsible choices for themselves and others

  • Enable children to participate in daily activities

  • Improve children’s self-help skills

  • Help children to navigate the classroom and school environment for learning

How can you do it?

Facilitate holistic development

Create a learning environment that supports children’s growth in all these areas, not just focusing on academics. Provide opportunities through an integrated approach to teaching and learning for children to develop the core VSLD and knowledge, skills and dispositions across the five learning areas.

Develop EF skills

Establish routines, modelling social behaviour and creating social situations which require children to make choices and direct their own activities.

Nurture sensory and motor development

Provide opportunities to develop children’s sense of balance, body position and movement where children can move freely, explore and control body movements, scale appropriate heights, explore the outdoors and engage in sand and water play.

Resources