Ethos and Values

Our identity and ethos - Who are we and what do we believe?

Windsor is a special place for young children to learn because:

• We all like children and feel privileged to work with children!

• We are well organised and work together to take all possible measures to keep every child in our care and all at Windsor safe and well.

• Children learn through play - we are passionate about affording children opportunity to play! Children here experience the excitement and challenge of learning.

• We are positive thinkers and relish adventure, possibility, learning and ‘learning about learning’.

• Our community has a wonderfully rich range of cultures, languages and experiences. Windsor belongs to its community and is a celebration of it!

• We have an embedded secure ethos of listening to and appreciating each individual child. We believe each child is a competent learner. We know each child needs us

• to believe in them, needs other children, caring adults with high expectations, time, space, generous resourcing, and a sense of freedom to play. We give them these.

• We see parents and carers as the children’s most enduring educators. We give them our respect, and seek to learn from them and with them while sharing our knowledge

• also. Together staff, parents and carers and children share an on-going conversation about each child’s learning, development, and wellbeing.

• Together we work to really know each individual child, understand their motivations and note key moments in their learning. We use this to make an irresistible and valuing

• offer to aid their progress. Each child is supported to see themselves a capable learner, unique, valuable individual and an important member of their learning community.

• We celebrate every child!

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We walk the path of learning together, with heart and head.

• We have a highly motivated team of governors, who are a culturally diverse group of men and women who each know this community well, are all strong thinkers with different viewpoints and are all highly motivated volunteers. They ask leaders difficult questions, steer the school to keep improving and ensure the best use of our funding, all to make sure we the children get the best chances for learning and strong outcomes.

• We have a motivated, highly trained, and experienced staff who work together as a dynamic team. Our team of leaders, educators and practitioners are perceptive and notice the little things young children show and tell us, have a hunger to know the children as unique individuals and a fascination to deepen their understanding about how each child learns.

• We use our constant learning to help tailor our offer, so children have great learning experiences and strong outcomes. We are creative and flexible and hold our principles in mind as we adapt to pandemic guidance.

• Our team work together, research together and train together. Team members also engage in research and training beyond the school with others and study alone. The sum of our work is an immensely rich learning environment in Windsor and so much more than we could each offer individually.

• We set ourselves ambitious targets and work to improve all the time.

• Our ethos is inclusive - every child and adult is important to us. Our actions and provision grow around our value for, and our knowledge of, each child. We work quickly to see, and together with parents to learn about and further understand children’s special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). We think and act positively to enjoy the unique personality of every individual and work rapidly and creatively to find ways to respond to, provoke next steps in learning and meet SEND with care and warmth. We are proactive in seeking to work with the right specialists; we know how to work together and do so well.

• Our team understand children’s social and emotional development and the importance of secure attachments. Every child has a key person who: takes that extra trouble to get to know and understand them; builds a two way relationship with their parents/carers to work in partnership in support of their child; holds the child in mind every day; is an advocate for them; holds ambition for them and ensures our provision is truly responsive to their individual learning needs. The key person-child-parent/carer relationships are strong! Each key person has a leader and team colleagues to support them.

• Every team member has robust knowledge of children’s language development and is skilled in noticing, listening to and interpreting what children are communicating. We understand the need to give the children reasons to talk, skills and the vocabulary to do so, and always prioritise the need to respond with care to build children’s confidence as competent thinkers, contributors, and communicators. Windsor is a communication rich environment!

• We see the range of languages and cultures that children and parents hold as an asset, and together are inventive in ways we can communicate and learn about life in different cultures and countries. We see and believe in the flexibility of children and the learning outcomes of children who are nurtured in their home language as well as learning English. We seek opportunities to improve our practice and we are a certificated Schools of Sanctuary.

• We appreciate both boys and girls as strong capable learners. Our generous learning environment and curriculum has and continues to be shaped and enhanced by the motivations and needs shown by boys and by girls, and we feel richer for this.

• We embrace challenge together. We work to develop courage to learn; to embrace the fear uncertainty may present. We see challenge as opportunity and risk

• competency as an essential skill for life.

• We are passionate in our commitment of providing a generous environment; one of challenge; possibility; careful resourcing; interested, knowledgeable and skilled adults; space; time; opportunity for practice and the freedom to take learning into uncharted territory. We are getting better at this every day!

• We have a wonderful big garden and forest adventure area which is resourced and supported to offer great possibilities for learning in the outdoors. We work to provide rich possibilities to feed children’s inner motivations to adventure, journey, look out, imagine, tell stories, feel empathy with wildlife, find and make collections, make rituals and feel at home in the outdoors. We have the benefit of ample space for 3 rich outdoor environments currently.

• We give children the time, freedom, equipment, and supervision to experience the natural world through all the seasons and conditions. Children are invited to and supported to learn about judging risk and how to keep themselves safe from harm. We know children need to move to learn. We actively encourage and support physical development and feed every child’s opportunity to learn to move.

• We really care about, and work to keep children safe from harm. We actively work to share with parents/carers ways we can work in partnership together to keep children safe. We have clear processes and are well organised for the health and safety of all school users and the safeguarding of children. We work closely with partner agencies to ensure the right level of safeguarding support at the right time. We keep our knowledge and skills current through attending training and are always open to new learning and guidance.

• We know that in life change is a certainty; we actively work to grow every individual’s resilience through change. Children and adults at Windsor help each other to bounce back, embrace positive approaches and thinking at difficult times, and to face challenges.

• We are persistent in building and developing relationships with local schools, with whom we share practice and most essentially to enable strong transitions and continued momentum for children moving on.

• We actively seek links with Early Years providers and maintained nursery schools locally and nationally, with whom we can work to improve and develop the most effective practice. We are an ‘Early Childhood Outdoors’ pioneer setting.

• Because of all these points, all children make strong or exceptionally strong progress during their time at Windsor.

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Windsor is a place of irresistible learning and belonging. We welcome you!