Montessori

Maria Montessori, an Italian born in 1870, worked alongside women and children for 10 years, and took a very keen interest in children with mental disabilities. Montessori was the first woman in Italy to become a qualified doctor. After observing a number of children, Maria came to the conclusion that children with mental disabilities did not need medical treatment, but a more suitable education in order to benefit their mental developments.

Later on, Montessori took an interest in education and attended the University of Rome in order to study education and anthropology. She was invited to set up a nursery in 1906, in a slum in Rome. During the time the nursery was set up, compulsory education for children was introduced, and started when they were 6 years old. For parents with children under the age of 6 years old, they had to be looked after while their mothers were out working. Because of this issued, the first nursery, Casa dei Bambini, was opened by Maria Montessori.

The aim of the Montessori schools was to nurture each child as an individual in order to encourage them to reach their full potential. They felt that a positive environment was as essential for children, as the movement and manipulation of them. Montessori used her own thoughts, ideas and resources, which she developed. Maria Montessori’s ideas and resources are still used in her schools, as well as others, today.

She began travelling around the world in 1912, and was invited to deliver lectures. In that same year, Maria opened the first Montessori school in America. After her death in 1952, when the centenary celebration of the opening of the first Montessori nursery, 22,000 other Montessori schools were discovered and identified in over 100 countries around the world.

The Children’s Room, Swansea’s very own Montessori school, offers Welsh Medium learning, a high teacher-to-child ratio, and conveys the Montessori principles for the children attending the nursery. It is privately run, and is the first nursery in South Wales according to the Montessori approach to early education. Like every other Montessori nursery, its aim is to develop the whole child intellectually, socially, physically linguistically and spiritually. They also aim to give each and every child the opportunity to develop all of these listed above.

Unfortunately, I do not have any experience of a Montessori school as there were none available to me when I was younger, and there were none based locally to me.

http://www.montessorisociety.org.uk/about/what-society-does

http://www.montessorischoolfinder.org/schooldetails.asp?schoolref=299

http://www.the-childrens-room.co.uk/about/