What is Montessori Education?

A Montessori education nurtures children’s natural desire to learn by providing a carefully prepared, beautiful and engaging learning environment. With guidance from specially trained teachers in our schools, children become confident, creative, responsible, empathetic and highly independent. They enjoy a hands-on approach to learning and the ability to academically pursue their interests.

Whilst traditional schools are adult-led, the Montessori curriculum is child-led. This means that children are guided towards making independent choices about their learning. They take an active role in learning by interacting with the Montessori materials to acquire new skills and concepts in a hands-on way. As children progress through the curriculum, their work choices become more conscious, resulting in children who are academically self-driven, curious and love to learn.

In the UK, any school can call themselves ‘Montessori’ regardless of their pedagogical approach, so here we’re highlighting some key features of an authentic Montessori setting to help parents spot the “real deal”:

• The Environment: A Montessori environment is meticulously prepared with all the materials that children need to learn, according to their age and stage of development. Children learn in a calm, peaceful and caring setting which they take responsibility for. This enables them to develop a community mindset and a strong sense of responsibility. The beautiful wooden materials that you will see in Montessori schools are precise and scientifically designed. Each material has a particular purpose and enables the child to develop a particular skill.
• Child-led: Children are inherently curious – they want to learn and find out about their world! In Montessori schools we follow these interests and expand on them, enabling children to engage in cross-curricular learning that integrates their ideas. This motivates children to go deeper and enables them to develop ownership over their learning.
• Mixed Age Groups: Authentic Montessori settings have mixed age groups in each class (0-3, 3-6, 6-9, 9-12, 12-16), which reflects reality and enables children to see that learning is not a linear process, and that everyone has unique skills they can share with each other. Older children develop empathy and kindness, whilst younger children have role models that they learn from and are inspired by. It results in a beautiful harmony between the children, no matter their age.
• Freedom to work at own pace: Children in our school benefit from the ability to give as much time as they need to their work, thereby developing confidence in their skills and abilities, and consolidating their knowledge at the pace that suits them. One child may work on addition sums for 3 hours, whilst another may only need 10 minutes, yet the result will be that both have a strong, in-built understanding of the concept.
• A specially trained adult: A Montessori teacher is highly-skilled at observing the capacities of each child and offers new challenges when they are ready. The teacher won’t interfere unless a difficulty arises, and they will give just enough help to get the child back on track.