Montessori at Us
Parents often ask “What are the distinguishing features of a
high-quality Montessori nursery?
Our first answer is seeing is believing! Come and visit us at Montessori
Garden, then compare what you see to your observations. If you haven’t
booked a visit yet, please contact us to schedule a visit.
Here are some features some parents noted and our elaborations:
A calm, orderly environment.
Messy play can still be orderly. We love for our children to run, sing,
play in the mud, model clay, finger paint, or explore foam,
etc...however there are specific areas for these to allow each child to
practice courtesy towards their peers, who also need to deeply engage in
other activities without interruption and distraction.
A Montessori environment thus primarily seeks to protect each child’s
individual space and freedom. The Montessori environment is surprisingly
calm, orderly and busy, since our goal is to enable children to engage
joyfully in their chosen activity and thus improve their skills and
self-esteem.
A focus on child-led exploration and activities.
Montessori environments do not have adult-led curriculum schedules in
which a group of children are required to move together between
activities every 20-40 minutes: counting, followed by art, followed by
outside play etc... Instruction happens in a tailored and individual
manner, at a unique child’s own pace and it is perfectly acceptable for
a child to choose to sit outside circle time or continue with his/her
chosen activity without interruption from others.
The Montessori curriculum supports a child’s emerging independence and
his self-discovery. Children have the luxury of time to choose their own
activities, to fully explore them at their own pace and to move freely
in the environment. Most instructions are one-on-one presentations.
Teachers follow the children’s interests, allowing them to explore the
materials, giving them the opportunity to continue to practice until
they are satisfied and understanding the optimal approach to the
activity in order to build the unique child’s knowledge and skills.
A deliberate, educational curriculum teaching life skills through play.
In the right environment, toddlers are eager to learn through
exploration and practice, and so their free play is what Montessori
called ‘work’. Toddlers in a Montessori classroom are surrounded by
exciting opportunities to develop life skills such as spooning, pouring,
matching, organising and much more.
The activities we provide in the class offer children the opportunity to
think creatively and develop problem solving skills. Further, our
trained teachers are able to extend the activities following the
interests of the unique child for deliberate purposes, such as
exercising the specific muscles in the hand needed for successful
writing and drawing
Grace and courtesy.
Many parents want their child/ren to become socialized when they start
nursery. But “socialization” can mean different things in different
settings. In a Montessori classroom, we guide children to develop what
Montessori calls grace and courtesy.
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We establish some clear rules that support a peaceful classroom such
as children may only take activities from shelves, never from another
child.
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We give children the language they need to express their needs (“I am
playing with this; you may have it when I am done,” or “I feel angry
because you messed up my work.”)
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Teachers model benevolent and cooperative behaviour such as role
playing with children scenarios demonstrating how to solve
‘conflicts’.
The Montessori focus on teaching individual, pro-social skills is
different from the group conformity. It is perfectly welcomed if a child
can question their teachers/instructors and peers instead of simply
conforming. We believe a child should not do what is told, but should do
what is reasoned and/or child chooses to follow role-modelled actions.
A focus on developing inner discipline.
In Montessori environments, the goal is to help children acquire
self-discipline: we want children to understand the right course of
behaviour, and to be internally motivated to behave well.
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Our teachers don’t expect immediate obedience from toddlers, nor do
they offer rewards (praise, stickers etc.) for ‘good’ behaviour, nor
punishments (time outs, withdrawal of rights e.g. no pudding) for
‘bad’ behaviour.
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Instead, we believe that children naturally behave acceptably, and
that by setting up the right environment, and role-modelling kind,
respectful behaviour, we can guide your child to develop inner
discipline.
When a child does misbehave, we emphasize positive alternatives e.g.
instead of “No running!” we calmly explain, “We walk in class. Let’s go
back and walk to the sink together.” For the older children we may
discuss logical consequences of their actions through calm
non-judgemental discussion “what would happen if you run? What else
could you do instead?” And because we have mixed aged classrooms, older
returning students are able to model healthy behaviour and younger
children benefit from the example of their older peers, and older
children benefit from the opportunity to mentor and guide their younger
peers.
A mixed age classroom.
In a Montessori setting, we value the influence of other children and
peers on the learning and development of individual children and so
encourage and ensure mixed-age classrooms, whilst ensuring the safety of
the very young. When a child can teach another, that child consolidates
knowledge for him/herself as well as developing valuable social skills.
Importantly, a more able child is the best and most interesting teacher
/ role model to another child. Lastly, there are much greater
opportunities for developing social skills and strengthening our
classroom community when the knowledge, skill sets, abilities and ages
of the children are mixed.
“The main thing is that the groups should contain different ages,
because it has great influence on the cultural development of the child.
This is obtained by the relations of the children among themselves. You
cannot imagine how well a young child learns from an older child; how
patient the older child is with the difficulties of the younger.”
- Maria Montessori
A higher ratio of trained teachers.
We could not stress more the importance of Montessori trained teachers
and their assistants, a much more effective education can happen with
one trained teacher than with ten untrained adults and therefore, our
ratio takes into account levels of trainings, not simply the age and
number of adults. Trained teachers are also able to effectively achieve
increasing independence – a key curriculum content.
In a small Montessori classroom with qualified teachers, our children
are nurtured and they learn with joy. The increasing independence helps
with children’s self-esteem, creating a positive loop of joyful
learning. In this way each child has the optimal environment to be
guided in his/her unfolding into a bright, capable, confident, energised
and enthused student. Increasingly independent children also role-model
to newcomers and youngsters, and they also need less of adults’ help,
which in turn frees our teachers’ time to observe, evaluate, analyse,
plan further and implement progressive classrooms with more engaging and
satisfying activities. The aim is that the classroom operates as if
there was no teacher present.
Trained permanent teachers.
Montessori classrooms are not generally larger than 25children – an
optimal size for learning and development, which also ensures training
adults are not overwhelmed by volume of toddlers and instructing their
emerging skills. Trained permanent staff in leading roles are essential
to retain consistency in classrooms and therefore we do not provide any
lead roles on part-time or ad hoc basis.
In a small Montessori setting, our lead teachers either join us with a
Montessori teaching credential, often from a MCI training program, or complete their training while employed with us. Further, as
Montessorians, we believe in practicing what we preach and our staff are
treated with great respect, encouraged to self-reflect and self-improve,
taking the lead of their own independent continuous learning. We aim to
provide full-time permanent roles to our staff.
Oversight by a Montessori-trained Head of School and Manager.
Montessori Garden is led by educators, a:
Montessori-trained Head of School & Manager,
Montessori-trained Deputy Manager, and a
Montessori-trained Owner, ensuring consistency of high standards and a unified
direction. Our managers are hands on in our small setting, teaching and observing,
providing feedback to teachers to help them improve their practice, and actively
working with parents in partnership for the further optimisation of their
children’s learning environment.
We are educators first and foremost, before being administrators or
investors, to avoid conflicting directions and reduced efficiency in
delivering the Montessori curriculum. Clearly stating our priorities
helps us work better together.
Does our Montessori approach work? We invite you to come and see for
yourself!
Most parents are astonished to see how calm, capable, confident and
serenely happy the children in our Montessori classrooms are. If you
doubt that your own rambunctious, active toddler could ever be like
that, rest assured that the children you now observe calmly seated
eating snack together came to us no different than your child.
The Montessori toddler environment really is that different from other
daycare settings, and that’s why Montessori children behave differently,
too!
