Montessori Education: A Royal Choice

The Royal Baby, Prince George, recently started schooling at Westacre Montessori school nursery in Norfolk, UK. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge intend to give their children as normal a childhood as possible, so they enrolled their son to a school that employs the Montessori method.

Just like most Montessori schools, Westacre boasts of achieving the best possible outcome for each child, and have in the past met the needs of disabled and special children. The school has been said to keep their children interested and motivated to participate in activities.

Montessori education is a teaching approach developed by Maria Montessori in the early 1900s. It focuses on personal development rather than rote memorization. Montessori education discourages exams and grades and instead focuses on individual progress. Schools using the Montessori approach are known for a liberal style in teaching children, and can include mixed-age classrooms.

The Philippines also has Montessori schools that provide progressive, experience-based and student-centered education. One of the pioneers in Montessori education in the Philippines is the Montessori De San Juan, run by Ms. Sandy Arellano.

Similar to Westacre's class structure, Montessori De San Juan does not have book-based classes with repetitive drills. Instead, areas of study are interwoven, with the subjects linked to one another. The school also allows for personal development and formation beyond education, so that their students can have life-long lessons. "Our students are not only provided with an exemplary set of academic tools, but the wisdom, integrity, and compassion to use it for the benefit of others as well," Sandy explained.

Get your child the same royal education as Prince George. Montessori De San Juan now accepts applicants up to Senior High School. Enrolment for all levels for school year 2016-2017 is until May 31. For more information about Montessori De San Juan, call 239-1102/725-6306, or visit their website at www.montessoridesanjuan.com.

Social Studies Month for Montessori de San Juan

Social Studies Month – Montessori de San Juan’s fun and creative way for students to appreciate various cultures

While October is Halloween for most kids, at Montessori de San Juan in Mandaluyong City, students get to dress up, not as monsters and imagined creatures, but in the national costumes of existing cultures. It’s a creative way for them to get to know, respect, and appreciate the various ways of life and perspectives around the world. And it’s no less fun than Halloween, but probably more horizon-expanding.

“All month long, we have art activities related to Social studies and different cultures around the world, we also have an olympiad with elimination rounds inside the classrooms for the final (quiz bee/olympiad),” said Sandy Arellano, Assistant Principal at Montessori de San Juan (MSJ).


Usually, at the end of October, the school holds a culminating activity. This year year, they’ve put together a Social Studies Travel Fair where children were assigned countries and they need to set up a booth/showcase/display for travelers. So this meant the children had to be able to talk about the demographics of “their” country, share food, and dress in their nation’s costume.



The Montessori Method

All this is in line with Montessori de San Juan’s approach to learning – hands on, immersive, interactive, and not just a sit-down lecture of concepts. The Montessori method is an alternative to the traditional way children are taught in schools – with strict rules, tiring homework, rote memorization, and legions of students cramped in once classroom. If only every child learned in the same way. If only repetition sparked in a child an inner curiosity and drive to learn, synthesize, discover.

Via the Montessori method, a child learns from a “discovery” model, where he or she works with materials (and learns concepts in the process) instead of via textbook spoon-feeding. The method also works with various types of learners – the visual, tactile, auditory. It’s easier to spot what kind of learner a child is in a smaller classroom – each class at Montessori de San Juan is populated with 12-15 students per class, with only one section per level.

So you can just imagine how much hands-on fun and immersive Social Studies Month was for the students of Montessori de San Juan.

The children from the upper grades prepared their booth, assisted of course by their social studies and home room teachers. The children researched facts, cooked some food in their home economics class, made pamphlets and power point presentations in their TechEd class, and displayed art work that they made, and so on. Some classes even presented short folk songs and dances.

As unconventional as it may seem, the Montessori method clearly works.

For more info on Montessori de San Juan, you may call 239-1102/725-6306 or visit their Facebook page:

MONTESSORI DE SAN JUAN: 40 YEARS OF TEACHING THE TRUE MONTESSORI WAY

Is your child studying in Montessori?
How sure are you that it is a true Montessori school in principle and not just by name?
It was only recently, when I attended the foundation day of Montessori de San Juan that I learned what it was like to be a “real” Montessori school.

Developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori, this unique educational system is characterized by an emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological, physical, and social development.
Among the essential elements recognized by the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) and the American Montessori Society (AMS) are:
• Mixed age classrooms, with classrooms for children ages 2½ or 3 to 6 years old
• Student choice of activity from within a prescribed range of options
• Uninterrupted blocks of work time, ideally three hours
• A constructivist or "discovery" model, where students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct instruction
• Specialized educational materials developed by Montessori and her collaborators
• Freedom of movement within the classroom
• A trained Montessori teacher

According to Sandy Arellano, Montessori de San Juan Vice Principal, real Montessoris adhere to the teaching modules developed by their founder. The school directors or principal should also get a certification either from the US or Europe.Their teachers she said are also trained in the Montessori method and have to undergo a special in house training in order to teach in their school.

Montessori's education is driven by an aspiring aim that is to aid the child's development into a complete adult human being, comfortable with one's self and society and with his humanity as a whole. Each individual is recognized for his or her own abilities, interests, ideas, needs, and cultural identity.

While other schools continually adding classrooms to accommodate more students, Arellano said they prefer to keep their classrooms small. “We only have 15 to 20 students per class because a smaller class size is paramount to knowing each child as an individual with his own needs, characteristics, capabilities and potential. A small class lets teachers could focus more on the individual learning needs of each student rather than just follow a lesson plan and hope that they will catch up and understand.

Montessoris emphasize learning through all five senses, not just through listening, watching, or reading and our students here learn at their own, individual pace and according to their own choice of activities from hundreds of possibilities.

I was also surprised to learn that Montessori schools avoid giving out homework, believing that learning should be done in the classroom and that time spent at school is already too much.
“We, at Montessori de San Juan, are committed to exposing the students to a learning environment that will assist them in adapting and adjusting to a diverse and ever changing society. We are dedicated to teach our students that the differences in gender, physical or mental ability, culture, and background are strengths to be respected,”she emphasized.

In celebration of its 40th foundation day last January  30, 2015 the school held a Science and Math fair along with a field demo that put together different grade levels in one group to foster camaraderie and boost their confidence.

Montessori de San Juan is located at #3 Montessori Lane St. (between Araullo  and P. Guevarra Sts.)
Landline numbers 239-1102/725-6306, or visit their Facebook page Montessori de San Juan.