Our
vision
The anthroposophical Montessori approach to teaching and learning offers children, parents and team members a solid anchor in today’s dynamic world. The focus is on continuous development for the children and we work together as one team – with the child at the heart of everything we do. Working in harmony with nature is a key pillar in our everyday activities.
We provide children a feeling of home: a safe, bountiful, well-ordered environment in which they have the freedom to choose, interact and move around. Our Montessori professionals provide coaching, inspiration, teaching and supervision as necessary, in line with each child’s specific needs. We help every child to get the best out of themselves and others. We prepare the children for the rapidly changing world that they form part of. They learn to take responsibility for their own development and actions, and for their position in the world.
Our mission
“Through a child to a new world”
- Maria Montessori
Sense of belonging
We create a safe place for every child in a mini version of society.
We encourage individuality within this mini version of society, in which each child is responsible for not only themselves but also the wider community. Our children’s centre is a microcosm of society where children can ‘practice’ living their lives. Here, they have the freedom to experiment and make mistakes. In this mini version of society, children can practice participating, interacting with others and dealing with differences. They discover that people are allowed to be themselves, and that everyone doesn’t look, think, act or feel the same. Our Montessori professionals draw on their own knowledge and experience to observe and facilitate each child’s development. The physical space, the programme and the activities are all designed to optimise child development.
Each child has their own place in their class, and the classes combine to make up the whole. Our Montessori Children’s Centre is a homely environment where children feel safe and welcome. Together with the children, parents and team members, we ensure that our Montessori Children’s Centre feels like a home from home. Children go through several phases of development and some sensitive periods. We divide the children into heterogeneous groups. We have a baby group (aged 0-2), a toddler group (aged 2-4), an infant group (aged 4-6), a junior group (aged 6-9) and a senior group (aged 9-12). Our carefully prepared environment, which has been designed in line with scientifically responsible principles, offers children the freedom to work based on their own motivation. Thanks to the heterogeneous groups, the children encounter miniature versions of real-life societal situations.
Surprising
To stimulate each child’s curiosity and help them to flourish, we sometimes stray from the beaten path.
It’s okay to act, think and be different. The building has a surprising design that inspires exploration. We give children, parents and Montessori professionals the freedom to make their own decisions and we challenge them in various ways. With an inquisitive view, we discover and shape the world together. We challenge one another to see things from different perspectives and to approach the world with an open mind every day. Learning is fun and meaningful if you feel you have the freedom to respond to everyone’s natural curiosity. This calls for physical, mental and emotional commitment.
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Our Montessori professionals give the children the freedom to experiment and to learn to take a broader – or different – view.
Trust
We believe in the inner strength of children.
Our Montessori Children’s Centre creates a teaching climate in which the Montessori professionals and the children trust and respect one another. Based on that trust, the children receive the freedom to learn to shoulder responsibility within a safe framework. Montessori education gives a child the opportunity to develop their own inner strength – the strength they need in order to be the adult they will later become. Together, we create a challenging, carefully prepared environment so that every child can blossom. We believe it is very important that a child grows and develops at their own pace and based on their own inner strength. This requires us to observe and listen to the child and to tailor the response to what each child indicates that they need.
Independence
We teach the children to do things themselves.
At our Montessori Children’s Centre, we focus heavily on everyone’s independence. In fact, this starts in the baby groups, where we reflect the importance of allowing children to grow and develop at their own pace and based on their own inner strength. Likewise, in the toddler groups, we playfully work on the children’s independence in order to prepare them for the infant group. The focus is not only on everyone being willing and able to agree to do a task, but also on feeling responsible for doing it. The ultimate aim is to develop a sense of shared responsibility – people who independently fulfil their role in the world in which they live and give meaning to their lives in cohesion with others. Children are born with a natural inquisitiveness. As they get older, they want to do more things for themselves: feed themselves, dress themselves, etc. They become increasingly self-reliant. This means that a child can do a growing number of things independently, such as zipping up their jacket or tying their shoelaces, but also cycling to school alone. At our school we stimulate each child to become increasingly self-reliant, but always in consultation with the parents to avoid misalignment between school and home. We enter into an active, pedagogically based developmental partnership on an equal footing with each child’s parents, always with the child’s best interests at heart.
Connecting
We regard children as the future of a world in which everything is interconnected.
Cosmic Education has an important role at our Montessori Children’s Centre. The Greek word ‘cosmos’ means order and harmony in the world and – on an even larger scale – the universe. In Cosmic Education, we discuss the various cosmic aspects and place them in an ever-bigger perspective. We always look for connections and cohesion, whether in day care, in education or in child development, while continuously taking account of the relationship, the balance and harmony between humans and culture, nature, space and time. Children become aware of their place and their responsibility in the further development of everything that already exists. We are interested in the world around us, in which everything is interconnected. That’s why we take an integrated approach to teaching various subjects, such as geography, biology, history, language, maths, sociology, technology and personal hygiene.
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This is continued outside of classes for children who also make use of our out-of-school care services.
