Early Years

Our Early Years program follows a five-days-a-week schedule, the same as the rest of SPS. Our school year runs September-June, consistent with Bend-LaPine Schools. You can find our school calendar here.

The school day runs from 8:00 am - 3:00 pm, Monday through Thursday, and 8:00 am - 1:30 pm on Fridays. Each day begins with a "soft start" of free play time from 8:00 - 9:00 am, to accommodate student drop-off at staggered times. Planned activities begin at 9:00 am. Each day includes time for structured learning activities, free play, outdoor play, a school-provided morning snack, and rest time.

After school care is available for an extra fee. Seven Peaks does not offer a summer preschool program.

At Seven Peaks, children participate in an IB-PYP inquiry-based program that responds to their academic and developmental needs. We allow a balance for children to explore, investigate, and play through freely-chosen activities as well as adult-initiated activities. We call this “planning for possibilities.” We have four core areas of belief:

#1 High Image Of The Child

We believe that children are naturally curious and full of wonder, with an innate ability to question and pursue their own learning. Our teachers view children as competent partners in the learning experience, and understand that each child has a unique pattern of growth and development. We encourage students to develop independence by taking initiative with their own self-care and organization.

#2 LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Our values are communicated and supported by thoughtfully planned learning environments. The physical learning environment is designed to support learning objectives, as well as the unique needs of young children. The arrangement of materials and activities encourages children to make choices, manipulate, create, and represent their ideas and understandings.

#3 Relationships

Our safe and nurturing atmosphere encourages children to build confidence and take risks. We believe that children feel safe and supported when their sense of shared ownership and belonging is emphasized. Connections to home and family are viewed as integral to learning, and are a visible part of curriculum planning and the environment. Children work together as a learning group to foster their individual understanding. as well as make collaborative discoveries.

#4 Play And Exploration 

We believe play is essential for young children’s cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development. Through play, children express, consolidate, and extend what they know about the world around them, incorporating their knowledge and skills. Children regularly participate in various kinds of play, which can be either child-led or teacher-initiated.

View our tuition and fees on the 'Tuition and Financial Aid' page this site.

Yes, all students will have access to visual arts, performing arts, PE, Spanish, and design classes in addition to their core curriculum. 

 We have four teachers in our Early Years program, which provides a student to teacher ratio of 1:9.

Yes, all children must be independently toileting before the start of school. 

In the Early Years, our progress reports read as narratives created from structured observations, designed to provide a holistic picture of your child’s learning. A majority of  the monitoring and documenting of students’ learning and development happens during play, telling a story of what the educator sees a child seeing, saying, and doing.

Early Years progress reports serve to highlight the unique journey of every child and provide a holistic view of growth, as opposed to a specific letter or number grade.

Using anecdotal and narrative records as the main form of reporting allows us to show the development of knowledge, ATLs and Learner Profile attributes across time, providing insight into your child’s behavior and progress.

Reporting on learning takes many forms – student portfolios, parent-teacher conferences, and progress reports.

Our Early Years program provides ample opportunities for growth in every developmental domain throughout the course of the year relying on play, observations, and activities. 

In the Approaches to Learning (ATL) domain, children will develop emotional and behavioral self-regulation skills, cognitive self-regulation skills, initiative and curiosity skills, and creative skills. 

In the social-emotional developmental domain, children will enhance their understanding of emotional functioning, sense of identity and belonging, and relationships with trusted adults and other children.

In the language and communication domain, children will be focusing on attending and understanding, communicating and speaking, and vocabulary development. 

In the domain of mathematics, children will be developing basic understanding of counting and cardinality, operations and algebraic thinking, measurement and data, and geometry and spatial sense.