Nursery has been bought and switching direction..

[sameb]

My daughters nursery has been sold and the new owners (who seem really nice) are changing it from a Montessori to a normal nursery. Im not super strict about it being a Montessori, but I did intentailly put her in a Montessori as I thought it would benefit her more...but Im not sure what effect this change may have on my daughter, Im wondering if I should leave her where she is as she is settled or move her to another Montessori.
She is my only child so I dont have any other experience.
Any thoughts welcome.

[CharlesRyder]

How old is she? If she has a long time left before starting school I think I would move to a Montessori if there was a really good one to go to.

If she's going to school in September, say, then not worth the disruption.

Do you have a proper Montessori you could move to?

[sameb]

She 2 yrs & 4mths. so still got a way to go.
When you say a proper Montessori.. are they not all proper?

[CharlesRyder]

No they are not! Any nursery can call itself a Montessori, it means very little in itself.

If they a doing it properly they will be accredited.

At my DS's (accredited) nursery they have a 3hr purist Montessori 'work period' in the morning. The afternoon is more like a 'normal' pre-school with games, music, cooking, gardening, topic etc.

In the Montessori work period they work exclusively with Montessori materials using Montessori methods (left to right, structured pathway through an activity, work quietly, set up and pack away activities independently etc).

The nursery has no 'ordinary' toys (plastic cars, dolls houses, noisy things etc). Everything is 'real'- like little versions of adult equipment, wooden toys. It looks like this ^^

[CharlesRyder]

Oh, an I forgot the most important thing! In a real Montessori all, or most, of the staff will be Montessori trained!

[Sameb]

Phew, then yes its a real montessori, they dont have any 'ordinary toys' everything is an in your picture, and they are very structured. So thats good.
There is another Montessori near by, I think I may se if they can do a taster session, see how she gets on.
Thanks

[CharlesRyder]

That is good. There are 'Montessori' nurseries out there where they just mean they occasionally ask a child to pour their own drink. I looked round a few before I picked for DS and the range was amazing.

[fluffymouse]

This is interesting reading. Dd went to a well known chain with Montessori in its name, but I didn't see any Montessori in practice, and certainly none of the staff I met were Montessori trained. I withdrew dd because it was a rubbish nursery above all. It did put me off Montessori though.

I don't want to put the name here, but if anyone wants to know they can pm me. There are already several threads with disgruntled parents whose children go to this chain.

[TiggyD]

Montessori - For people who don't believe there have been any improvements in nursery care in the last hundred years.

[CharlesRyder]

Tiggy that's as sensible as saying 'Theory of relativity- for people who don't believe there have been any advancements in physics in a hundred years'.