Frequently Asked Questions

At first, Montessori may look unstructured to some people, but it is actually quite structured at every level. Just because the Montessori program is highly individualised does not mean that children can do whatever they want. Like all children, Montessori children live within a cultural context that involves the mastery of skills and knowledge that are considered essential.

Montessori teaches all of the “basics,” and gives students the opportunity to investigate subjects that are of particular interest. It also allows them the ability to set their own schedule.

At the early childhood level, external structure is limited to clear cut ground rules and correct procedures that provide guidelines and structure for three and four year olds. By age five, most schools introduce some sort of formal system to help the children to keep track of what they have completed and what they still need to complete.

Primary School Montessori children normally work with a written study plan for the day or week. It lists the tasks that they need to complete, while allowing them to decide how long to spend on each and what order they would like to follow. Beyond these basic, individually tailored assignments, children explore topics that capture their interest, imagination and share them with their classmates.

All children play! They explore new things playfully. They watch something of interest with a fresh open mind. This impression stems from parents who don’t know what to make of the incredible concentration, order, and self-discipline that we commonly see among Montessori children. Play can be seen as inside work or outside work, the children see work as play.

Montessori children also tend to take the things they do in school quite seriously. It is common for them to respond, “This is my work,” when adults ask what they are doing. It is also important for the child to attend school every day and arrive in the class no later than 7.55 a.m. Each child has a three hour work period every day in which to develop into the person they are to become.

Children touch and manipulate everything in their environment. In a sense, the human mind is handmade, because through movement and touch, the child explores, manipulates, and builds a storehouse of impressions about the physical world around her. Children learn best by doing, and this requires movement and spontaneous investigation.Montessori children are free to move about, working alone or with others at will. They may select any activity and work with it as long as they wish, so long as they do not disturb anyone or damage anything, and as long as they put it back where it belongs when they are finished.

Many exercises, especially at the early childhood level, are designed to draw children’s attention to the sensory properties of objects within their environment: size, shape, colour, texture, weight, smell, sound, etc. Gradually, they learn to pay attention, seeing more clearly small details in the things around them. They have begun to observe and appreciate their environment. This is a key in helping children discover how to learn. Freedom is a second critical issue as children begin to explore. Our goal is less to teach them facts and concepts, but rather to help them to fall in love with the process of focusing their complete attention on something and mastering its challenge with enthusiasm.

The prepared environment of the Montessori class is a learning laboratory in which children are allowed to explore, discover, and select their own work. The independence that the children gain is not only empowering on a social and emotional basis, but it is also intrinsically involved with helping them become comfortable and confident in their ability to master the environment, ask questions, puzzle out the answer. It is important for our children that you allow them to carry their own bags into the school and that the preschool and primary children use our stop and drop system at our school.

Sometimes parents worry that by having younger children in the same class as older ones, one group or the other will be short changed. It is important to have good role models in the class and to help the younger children in their learning and also by repeating exercises previously done unconsciously. The younger child is taken care of by the older child and the child is not scared by doing new work because they have seen the presentation done previously with an older child.

Montessori classes are organized to encompass a two or three year age span, which allows younger students the stimulation of older children, who in turn benefit from serving as role models. Each child learns at her own pace and will be ready for any given lesson in her own time, not on the teacher’s schedule of lessons. In a mixed age class, children can always find peers who are working at their current level.

Children normally stay in the same class for three years. With two thirds of the class normally returning each year, the classroom culture tends to remain quite stable Working in one class for two or three years allows children to develop a strong sense of community with their classmates and teachers. The age range also allows especially gifted children the stimulation of intellectual peers, without requiring that they skip a grade or feel emotionally out of place.

Many schools take pride in having very small classes, and parents often wonder why Montessori classes are so much larger. Montessori classes commonly group together twenty five to thirty children covering a three year age span. Schools that place children together into small groups assume that the teacher is the source of instruction, a very limited resource. They reason that as the number of children decreases, the time that teachers have to spend with each child increases. Ideally, we would have a one on one tutorial situation. But the best teacher of a three year old is often another somewhat older child.

This process is good for both the tutor and the younger child. In this situation, the teacher is not the primary focus. The larger group size puts the focus less on the adult and encourages children to learn from each other. By consciously bringing children together in larger multi-age class group, in which two thirds of the children normally return each year, the school environment promotes continuity and the development of a relatively stable community.

Dr. Montessori identified four “planes of development,” with each stage having its own developmental characteristics and developmental challenges. The Early Childhood Montessori environment for children age three to six is designed to work with the “absorbent mind,” “sensitive periods,” and the tendencies of children at this stage of their development. Learning that takes place during these years comes spontaneously without effort, leading children to enter Primary School classes with a clear, concrete sense of many abstract concepts. Montessori helps children to become self-motivated, self-disciplined, and to retain the sense of curiosity that so many children lose along the way in traditional classrooms. They tend to act with care and respect toward their environment and each other. They are able to work at their own pace and ability. The three year Montessori experience tends to nurture a joy of learning that prepares them for further challenges.

This process seems to work best when children enter a Montessori program at age two or three and stay at least through the Pre-School years. Children entering at age four or five do not consistently come to the end of the three year cycle having developed the same skills, work habits, or values. Older children entering Montessori may do quite well in this very different setting, but this will depend to a large degree on their personality, previous educational experiences, and the way they have been raised at home. Montessori programs can usually accept a few older children into an established class, so long as the family understands and accepts that some critical opportunities may have been missed, and some of these children may not reach the same levels of achievement seen in the other children of that age.

On the other hand, because of the individualized pace of learning in Montessori classrooms, this will not normally be a concern.

Great teachers help learners get to the point where their minds and hearts are open, leaving them ready to learn. In effective schools, students are not so much motivated by getting good grades as they are by a basic love of learning. As parents know their own children’s learning styles and temperaments, teachers, too, develop this sense of each child’s uniqueness by spending a number of years with the students and their parents. Dr. Montessori believed that teachers should focus on the child as a person, not on the daily lesson plan. Montessori teachers lead children to ask questions, think for themselves, explore, investigate, and discover.

Their ultimate objective is to help their students to learn independently and retain the curiosity, creativity, and intelligence with which they were born. Montessori teachers don’t simply present lessons; they are facilitators, mentors, coaches, and guides. Traditionally, teachers have told us that they “teach students the basic facts and skills that they will need to succeed in the world.” Studies show that in many classrooms, a substantial portion of the day is spent on discipline and classroom management Normally, Montessori teachers will not spend much time teaching lessons to the whole class. Their primary role is to prepare and maintain the physical, intellectual, and social/emotional environment within which the children will work.

A key aspect of this is the selection of intriguing and developmentally appropriate learning activities to meet the needs and interests of each child in the class. Montessori teachers usually present lessons to small groups of children at one time and limit lessons to brief and very clear presentations. The goal is to give the children just enough to capture their attention and spark their interest, intriguing them enough that they will come back on their own to work with the learning materials. Montessori teachers closely monitor their childrens’ progress. Because they normally work with each child for two or three years, they get to know the child’s strengths and weaknesses, interests, and personalities extremely well. Montessori teachers often use the children’s interests to enrich the curriculum and provide alternate avenues for accomplishment and success.

Montessori is not opposed to competition; Dr. Montessori simply observed that competition is an ineffective tool to motivate children to learn and to work hard in school. Traditionally, schools challenge students to compete with one another for grades, class rankings, and special awards. For example, in many schools tests are graded on a curve and are measured against the performance of their classmates rather than considered for their individual progress. In Montessori schools, students learn to collaborate with each other rather than mindlessly compete. Students discover their own innate abilities and develop a strong sense of independence, self-confidence, and self-discipline. In an atmosphere in which children learn at their own pace and compete only against themselves, they learn not to be afraid of making mistakes.

They quickly find that few things in life come easily, and they can try again without fear of embarrassment. Dr. Montessori argued that for an education to touch children’s hearts and minds profoundly, students must be learning because they are curious and interested, not simply to earn the highest grade in the class. Montessori children compete with each other every day, both in class and on the playground. Dr. Montessori, herself an extraordinary student and a very high achiever, was never opposed to competition on principle. Her objection was to using competition to create an artificial motivation to get students to achieve.

While Montessori children are allowed considerable latitude to pursue topics that interest them, this freedom is not absolute. Within every society there are cultural norms; expectations for what a student should know and be able to do by a certain age. Experienced Montessori teachers are conscious of these standards and provide as much structure and support as is necessary to ensure that children live up to them.

Every child has areas of special gifts, a unique learning style, and some areas that can be considered special challenges. Each child is unique. Montessori is designed to allow for differences. It allows students to learn at their own pace and is quite flexible in adapting for different learning styles.In many cases, children with mild physical handicaps or learning disabilities may do very well in a Montessori classroom setting. On the other hand, some children do much better in a smaller, more structured classroom. Each situation has to be evaluated individually to ensure that the program can successfully meet a given child’s needs and learning style.

Yes, in general, children who are highly gifted will find Montessori to be both intellectually challenging and flexible enough to respond to them as unique individuals.

Most Montessori schools do not assign homework to children below the Primary School level. When it is assigned to older children, it rarely involves page after page of “busy” work; instead, the children are given meaningful, interesting assignments that expand on the topics that they are pursuing in class.

Many assignments invite parents and children to work together. When possible, teachers will normally build in opportunities for children to choose among several alternative assignments. Sometimes, teachers will prepare individually negotiated weekly assignments with each student.

By the end of age five, Montessori children are normally curious, self-confident learners who look forward to going to school. They are normally engaged, enthusiastic learners who honestly want to learn and who ask excellent questions. Montessori children by age six have spent three or four years in a school where they were treated with honesty and respect. While there were clear expectations and ground rules, within that framework, their opinions and questions were taken quite seriously.

Unfortunately, there are still some teachers and schools where children who ask questions are seen as challenging authority. It is not hard to imagine an independent Montessori child asking his new teacher, “But why do I have to ask each time I need to use the bathroom?” or, “Why do I have to stop my work right now?” We also have to remember that children are different. One child may be very sensitive or have special needs that might not be met well in a teacher centered traditional classroom. Other children can succeed in any type of school. There will naturally be trade-offs if a Montessori child transfers to a traditional school. The curriculum in Montessori schools is often more enriched than that taught in other schools.

The values and attitudes of the children and teachers may also be quite different. Learning will often be focused more on adult assigned tasks done more by rote than with enthusiasm and understanding. There is an old saying: if something is working, don’t try to fix it. This leads many families to continue their children in Montessori. As more Montessori High Schools are opened it is likely that this trend will continue.

Montessori teachers carefully observe the children at work. They give the child informal, individual oral exams or have the children demonstrate what they have learned by either teaching a lesson to another child or by giving a formal presentation. The children also take and prepare their own written tests to administer to their friends. Montessori children usually don’t think of assessment techniques as tests so much as challenges. Students are normally working toward mastery rather than a standard letter grade scheme.

While Montessori students tend to score very well, Montessori educators are deeply concerned that many standardised tests are inaccurate, misleading, and stressful for children. Good teachers, who work with the same children for three years and carefully observe their work, know far more about their progress than any “paper and pencil” test can reveal.

You can help your child by reading Dr. Montessori’s books on Montessori education and helping us to help your child by adhering to the policies and rules in our school. The rules and policies are there to help your child to have the best education and to become the confident, independent person he can be with good self-esteem.

You can also help by attending information evenings or mornings and supporting the school in raising funds for the school. Help your child to take pride in their belongings or school uniforms. Be a good example by making sure your child arrives at school on time and that if they have homework or an assignment that it is completed in time.

We feel at Rainbow Montessori that each child needs to feel that they belong and are accepted for the person they are. We introduced a uniform so that each child looks alike and therefore does not put pressure on the child to compete by wearing labeled clothing.