We want children to grow up feeling great in their own skin. To develop fantastic motor skills, but also to carry the highest levels of body confidence and engagement into their adult lives.
About Jabadao
Jabadao is a UK charity, established in 1985 to develop collaborative projects pairing somatic movement specialists with education and health organisations, to create embodied approaches to learning and health.
It quickly grew from a regional organisation offering community projects, into the National Centre for Movement, Learning and Health offering an extensive and innovative training programme across the UK, with a flagship two-year Diploma Course at the heart.
Settings across the UK use the Jabadao approach - with substantial current interest in both Wales and Northern Ireland. To date over 19,000 practitioners have trained and over 500,000 children have been involved in new opportunities.
Research
Between 1998 and 2009, Jabadao led a two-cycle action research project investigating the way adults in early years settings and special schools supported young children’s (0-6) physicality.
The resulting report was launched at a conference chaired by Baroness Estelle Morris, former Secretary of State for Education.
The Jabadao knowledge base
Jabadao team members combine developmental movement knowledge, with strong practice in play-based movement and body work techniques.
The training team is led by Penny Greenland MBE, founder of Jabadao.
The practitioner team are all movers, as well as teachers and researchers. We play to find out about the value of play; as well as undertaking action research and collaborative investigations with early years and special school partners. We model movement play techniques, as movement players ourselves.
