Fysio Educatief is an innovative educational publisher who aims to let people, especially children, experience how they can use their bodies in the most effective way possible for a better quality of life. We have developed practical materials with the goal to give children and the adults who share their environments an understanding of how their bodies work, to feel the difference between tension and relaxation, to develop a positive body awareness, and to familiarize children with the principle of the body’s natural recovery mechanism. As such, they will understand how they can support this continuous recovery process for their own well-being. Our materials place a great emphasis on self-efficacy and the self-regulation system of the body in order to explore all the learning capacities: physical, social, emotional and academic daily stimulation.
One of our key objectives is to get the recent brain science insights available on a very basic, practical level to all adults who play a role in a setting where children’s well-being in learning, living and of course moving, is concerned. The methods of Fysio Educatief are made in close collaboration with other stakeholders and have been commissioned by governments and civil society organizations both in the Netherlands and abroad. For the development of each title, Fysio Educatief proposes a project team of specialists from different disciplines. Collaboration with leading educational and health institutions, extensive testing in pilot schools, families, and health and community institutions as well as scientific research provide a satisfactory method with strongly positive results as demonstrated by various studies.
The method The Class Moves! has been funded by the European Commission Comenius in 1998 (57123-CP-1-98-1-NL-COMENIUS-C2) as a three year project. The project aimed mainly at primary schools, particularly for the integration of minority groups such as travelers and ethnic minorities in the Netherlands, Scotland, Wales, Germany and Belgium. Up until today, the method The Class Moves! is still used in many schools in all these countries. Recent figures from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey in Scotland (carried out in 2010) pointed out that 58% of all head teachers reported that The Class Moves! is still used in daily practice within their schools.
Our international WISHES network (Working Internationally on Social development and Health in European Schools and families) is set up together with an international network of teachers, teacher educators, researchers, parents and other specialists in the areas of health and education. The key areas of WISHES’ interest are school-home interaction, innovation and teacher education, inclusion and equity, media well-being including cyber literacy, national ICT platforms, exploring sustainable environments by combining eco-literacy and health literacy, developing models and practical ideas on a one to one basis, thinking globally whilst acting locally, and exploring how the creative arts can contribute to well-being. In our WISHES network we work with specialists that focus on the very early development of the child as we aim to include materials for the youngest in the near future.