Early Years foundation Stage
Montessori environments for infants, and classrooms from preschool through high school, are based on a different philosophy of education in comparison to usual educational institutions.
Rather than beginning with a school / society – dictated set of lessons, the Montessori “guide” (as the teacher is usually called) builds on the natural human tendencies toward exploration, hard work, creativity, and communication, to create a learning environment which feeds the evolving passions of the children.
When the environment meets all of the needs of children, they become, without any manipulation by the adult, physically healthy, mentally and psychologically fulfilled, and extremely well educated. In the following quote, Dr. Montessori speaks of the first Casa del Bambini (Children’s House) in Rome, illustrating her important discovery, the core of all Montessori work today:
Tailored Early Years Activities:
All activities are designed with Ofsted’s Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework in mind and planned on a day by day, week by week basis. Each activity is thought through for every age group and across all seven areas of learning, making sure that every child is able to engage actively with it.
This framework includes three prime areas of child development – these are areas that children start developing from birth:
- Communication and language
- Physical development
- Personal, social and emotional development.
It also covers four specific areas, which tend to become more important from age 2 onwards:
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understand in the world
- Expressive art and designing
We recognise that each child is unique and possesses individual talents and a specific way of learning. We aim to identify these traits as soon as possible and make sure that we design activities and learning opportunities that suit all of our children, allowing every one of them an opportunity thrive and develop in their own way. One thing is however constant for every child at our setting – our values of Kindness, Curiosity and Mindfulness are interwoven into everything we do.
