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, 2012). This points to the importance of adequate motor competence for children's healthy weight status as indicated in the model of Stodden et al. (2008). In an effort to explain why Australian children generally scored lower than their Belgian counterparts, and why both countries scored significantly lower when compared to German norms, we adopted the three constraints based model as a framework which shapes motor development (Newell, 1986). Descriptive data showed that both samples had similar sex distributions and anthropometric characteristics, although the Belgian children were on average 3 months younger (which is why the difference in raw scores do not appear meaningful as they have not accounted for age). The KTK is a test of gross motor coordination, as such the tasks were novel for all children taking part. It is therefore likely that the PA contexts such as physical education (PE) in pre-school and primary school played a role in the differences observed in the KTK performance. Early childhood is described as the optimal time to develop motor skills and establish motor competence (Hardy et al., 2010b) and preschool has been lauded as the ideal institution for PA promotion in young children (Ward, 2010; Hinkley et al., 2012). In Belgium, 98% of children aged 3�C6 attend a free pre-school program for 30 h a week (Flemish Ministry of Education and Formation, 2011). In Australia, 70% of children aged 3�C5 years attend a pre-school program of which only 23% attend for ��15 h per week, and often there is a cost attached to these services (Pink, 2008). Overall, Australia is performing poorly in its ability to meet a set of minimum standards for children in their formative years when compared to other countries from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Australia currently only meets two of the 10 standards whilst Belgium complies with six standards (UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2008). Therefore, the lower levels of motor performance observed in Australian children at the age of 6 years may be due to pre-school experiences, or the lack of them prior to beginning primary school. In both countries, PE may be the main vehicle for developing children's motor competence in primary schools. Differences in policies and common practices in PE may explain the higher motor scores found in Belgian children. The PE curriculum in Flanders is protected by the decree ��Education II�� (Flemish Ministry, 1990) which legitimizes PE as part of the ��basic school curriculum�� and Alisertib dictates that two 50 min lessons a week are compulsory for all children from 6 to 18 years (Arnouts and Spilthoorn, 1999). Though there is little evidence available for the quality of PE, approximately 81% of Flemish primary schools deploy a specialist teacher to teach PE (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2013).