The purpose of our EYFS curriculum is to ensure that our children fulfil their potential; achieving all that they can in a warm, safe, stimulating, supportive and aspirational environment. Together, we give children the knowledge, skills and self-belief to change their world. Our EYFS seeks to provide joy of learning, quality and consistency and a secure foundation for future learning. We place an emphasis on the importance of positive relationships and the development of communication and language - this is achieved through effective transition, strong personal, social and emotional development and providing a language rich environment. We know that the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers in Communication and Language is smallest in EYFS than in other years (Rowland, M, Addressing Educational Disadvantage in schools and colleges: 2021) so it is paramount that the children have a language rich environment with adult experts modelling the highest quality language when talking with children.

By implementing a clear and consistent approach, we know that our children can become confident, resilient, creative and empathetic learners; enabling them to achieve our eight aspirations by the end of the year:

We strive for our children to experience learning as an exciting adventure, and our inclusive approach to education ensures that we have the highest expectations for all learners that is underpinned by our whole school approach to High Quality Inclusive Practice:

We believe in learning through play, which the children call ‘Discovery Time.’ The LEGO foundation research shows that engaging with the world through play is essential for learning early in life as well as for building the foundations for lifelong learning. Together with a sense of agency, joy, meaningfulness and active engagement are necessary for children to enter a state of learning through play. The addition of any of the other two characteristics (iteration and social interaction) supports even deeper learning. Learning through play happens best when it is experienced as joyful, meaningful, actively engaging, iterative (trying out and revisiting hypotheses) and involves social interaction.  

At Endeavour, children have the opportunity to learn through play as well as participate in four teacher led sessions each day:

• Sensory circuits -Our sensory circuits are designed to facilitate sensory processing and are a great way of stimulating children’s sensory-motor skills, ready for learning. Through a series of short, snappy actions including motor and tactile play, problem-solving and relaxation, children are able to reach a level of alertness to promote concentration, making sensory circuits an ideal activity before the start of formal learning.

• Phonics – At Endeavour, we follow the Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) phonics programme. Please follow this link for more information

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/essential-letters-and-sounds/ 

• Project – Our project knowledge and skill progression has been carefully designed to teach children the foundational knowledge and skills they require to achieve in future learning. 

• Maths – At Endeavour, we plan and deliver maths through 'blocks' of learning. 

In our EYFS classrooms, children are happy, confident and engaged. Children are proud of their learning and feel successful. The children follow the school 3Bs of:

• Be safe
• Be respectful

• Be ready

Building strong relationships with parents/carers is very important to us as a school. From our initial 'Welcome to Endeavour' parent meeting in May to your child's last day in Year 6, as parents/carers, you will be included in your child's learning journey every step of the way. We share the children's learning through half-termly newsletters. Each child at Endeavour has one Tapestry observation a week - this allows parents to know how their child is getting on at school including what they are learning, what they are being highly successful at, what their next step is and what staff are doing to support this. We also invite parents into share their child's learning through our project outcomes which are scheduled for the end of each project. These include assemblies, forest school and stay and plays.

If you have any questions or would like to visit our aspirational setting, we would love to meet you and would be proud to show you around. Please contact the school office on:

adminoffice@endeavour.hants.sch.uk