A warm, caring environment in a beautiful setting • For children from 6 months to 5 years
"A Montessori School is a unique cycle of learning designed to take advantage of the child's sensitive years between three and six when he can absorb information from an enriched environment." Doctor Maria Montessori
THE METHOD
The Montessori Method was founded by Maria Montessori in 1907 in Italy. She discovered a method of teaching that allowed the children to develop and learn throughout their own needs without barriers.
Maria Montessori created an atmosphere that was warm, happy and full of love that would bring about happy, healthy children and here at the Rugby Montessori School we would like to think we have succeeded in recreating this atmosphere for our children to work in.

"The first duty of the educator, whether he is involved with the new born or the older child, is to recognise the human personality of the young being and respect it."
Doctor Maria Montessori

"The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six. For that is the time when man's intelligence itself, his greatest implement, is being formed."
Doctor Maria Montessori
THE CLASSROOM
We have fitted out the classrooms with everything to the child's scale, allowing them to be totally independent of adults. We have a full range of specially designed Montessori teaching materials starting with practical life and ranging through to sensorial, language, mathematics, music and movement, mime and elementary French.

PARENTS
Every parent wants the best for their child - that is indisputable. Also, it is now generally accepted that pre-school years are vitally important for the later growth and development of a child's full potential.
Because of these two facts, there are a growing number of parents who are seeking a pre-school situation which offers what has come to be known as the "Montessori Method". Montessori schools, it is thought, offer the best and aim to provide the child with the right conditions and grounding for his or her potential to be fully realised.
The two main ideas that form the key components of the Montessori Method are the special qualities of the environment (the children's house) and the special qualities of the teacher (the directress).
The unique interaction of these two forces influence and shape the CHILD in a way that, first and foremost, assists the natural development of his or her personality and at the same time promotes healthy, physical, social, emotional development as well as provide the optimum opportunities for intellectual development.
THE STAFF
All of my staff are experienced and trained Montessori Nursery School teachers and most of them are also qualified nursery nurses (NNEB's).
All of my staff are First Aid Certificate holders.
Staff training ensures that they are calm, patient, caring and conscientious, allowing the child's true potential to develop.
THE PREPARED ENVIRONMENT
IMAGINE you are a child of between 2½ and 3 years old and going to a Montessori school. It is just like a Lilliputian world because everything is the right size and specially designed for you - the tables, the chairs, the shelves fitted around the classroom walls, the lavatories, the basins, the low cupboards, pegs for clothes, the mirror on the wall - everything! In fact, it is called a "children's house".
There is a large schoolroom with lots of space to move around in freely. It is a very attractive room, with interesting pictures, bowls of flowers on each table and other plants for you to tend and care for. The chairs and tables are randomly arranged, not in rows facing the teacher. Everything is tidy and ordered. There are different areas in the classroom.
PRACTICAL LIFE MATERIALS
Those everyday activities which remind you of the things you do at home or watch Mummy doing. For example, you can sweep up and clean and polish the furniture. These and many other activities help you to be independent and develop your concentration - as well as learn a lot about the world around you.
SENSORIAL MATERIALS
THESE are the interesting exercises for learning about the environment through sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. The activities highlight different aspects of the world for you and help to extend and refine your vocabulary. Slowly you construct a picture of the real world. This gives you a sound foundation for developing your imagination.
"Never let a child risk failure until he has a reasonable chance of success."
Doctor Maria Montessori
MATHEMATICS MATERIALS
THESE are concrete activities using rods, beads, spindles and cubes that you can use to learn to count with and structures of numeration. It is all very logical and gradually, step by step, you understand, abstract and internalise the mathematical relationship of the world in which you live.
LANGUAGE MATERIALS
AT your age you learn language avidly listening and speaking. In the language corner there are lots of interesting picture books, reading books and pink, blue and green boxes with word and pictures.
Using sandpaper letters and cut-out alphabets, you suddenly find you have learnt to read and write without knowing when or how.
These skills give you the keys to discovering more knowledge - suddenly you notice the whole classroom is filled with words, labels on objects, and pictures and books.
THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Learning in the classroom is easy. Your directress never pressurises you, but she will show you carefully how things work. You will watch, then you will try and discover for yourself, step by step.
It is such a happy place, your "children's house" …there is always something interesting going on and everything seems calm and peaceful.
You are never shouted at or hurt by anyone - and you learnt early on that if you felt like taking things away from anyone else, or spoiling their work, it was not accepted. You respect your directress, and she respects you!
The child's experience in a Montessori "children's house" has been an entirely happy one, and it has also been interesting and stimulating. By the age of five or six he or she will be above all JOYFUL, with a unique personality, keenly motivated to learn with an independence and self-discipline that will help him or her through the next stage in life.
The child will possess the power to concentrate and follow through on projects and interests.
He or she will also have acquired a high level of competence and be well adjusted socially - in fact, in full harmony with the external world and at peace with the internal one.
So what is the Montessori Method? Montessori herself wrote in 1949: "One would like to know in a few clear words what this Montessori Method really is if we were to eliminate the word 'method' things would become much clearer.
THE RUGBY MONTESSORI NURSERY SCHOOL
Bilton Grange, Dunchurch, Rugby CV22 6QU
Tel: 01788 811218