Need Advice Montessori Schools - Feedback/ Suggestion?

Hi,

I want to send my child to montessori school 3-6 yr classroom & would like your insight if you have your children in a montessori school.

I was looking at 3 school mainly -

Willow Montessori
Belmont-Green
Boyd

I also just found out that Winwood follows montessori method but have no idea about the cost or availability.

but if you have any other reco that is welcome too.

Couple of other close ones would be one on Church rd & another in Leesburg, I think.

I was interested in Willow because of all the flexible options they offer but read 1-2 comments not so great about it. Another thing is they keep advertising yoga, music but never have teacher for those things.

Do you know anything about Belmont-Green school? Heard few good things about it. Is there a particular teacher you like?

Never thought selecting pre-school would be this hard.

If you relly liked a particular teacher at any of the schools I'd love to hear about it.

Please Share your +ve or -ve experiences. Feel free to send a pm as I think it might be against the forum rules to post -ve comments.

 

I have had my daughter at the Boyd School since she was 18 months old. But at the same time I started working there to get to know the environment and to cover the cost.

Here is my 2 cents:

Since I got to learn more about how Montessori works, it does have to be a full time commitment. Monday - Friday. It really is about building habits that has to be consistent and part of daily routine. I don't believe you can get that with part-time set up.

I can't comment on the other schools because I have never visited them.

Boyd School is very committed in keeping their standards high.

PE, Spanish and Music Teachers are all professionally trained teachers. PE also includes introduction to yoga but focuses mostly on creative movement and developing their coordination. The Head of the School has a Ph. D. in Education as well as having her 3 kids there. Same with our Music and Art teacher. She actually has her Ph. D from Yale.
These are extraordinary moms who are able to balance life/work well and with 3 young ones you can imagine how hard that can be.

Facility is great and it is constantly maintained.

I believe it is the only Accredited Montessori school in the area.

I was fully supported when I started a "volunteer" program and "nature" education and we started taking the kids to the nature center by rotating classes every week. Kids love it.

The success of the student I believe it really depends on the good relationship between the teacher and the student and the family. This methods will work the best if you understand the core and practice it at home as well. My daughter learned so much and is very independent for her age at 3.5. There will be good days and bad days but it is same for everyone.

This works best if you are committed for at least for 3 years. It can be costly but it is worth it for sure.

Nothing is perfect in life, so I can't say everything is perfect at this school too. We have our ups and downs but overall We are very happy with it.

If you have any questions you can PM me.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the response. I have read couple of books on Montessori and have some idea and I'm very interested in the method. Looks very promising.

I also contemplated the idea about applying to the school for Asst. (since I don't have Montessori training) to cover the cost. Great to hear that you took that route. Please share (only if you feel comfortable) if they have tuition discount & if working there helps or not (considering, if I go that route, I'll have to put my toddler there too). Feel free to pm me. Thanks again for your insight.

 

BTW you are talking about broadlands campus of Boyd, right?

 

No, Boyd is not the only accredited Montessori school in the area. AMI and AMS awards accreditation. For American Montessori Society check out by state at http://www.amshq.org/schoolExtras/accredited.htm

Accreditation is not the only area to pay attention to when choosing a school. Other areas include: is the school a teaching site, is the staff cohesive - do they operate as a team or individually? Do they share best teaching practices etc? Does the staff take care of its parents? Is there a PTA? Is there a parent group to help learn from each other and introduce new information on Montessori Parenting topics/other parenting topics (monthly is nice)? Is there a school drop off line or a massive drop off after parents have to park and walk in?

 

I have experience with both Boyd School in Broadlands and Montessori at Belmont Greene. My daughter attended Boyd for the first three years they were open and my son just completed his first year at "MAB".

I don't want to hash all the bad here, but lets just say after her final year at Boyd, we were not willing to send our son there, despite the fact that I had volunteered and occasionally worked at the school 2 out of the 3 years we were there.

I think the #1 thing you need to be concerned about are the teachers. As your child spends their 3 years in Montessori, they are supposed to have the same teacher for the 3 years. Your child's ability to develop to those ideal videos they will show you, absolutely depends on the teacher's ability to control the classroom to the point that they can develop each child appropriately. ASK-ASK-ASK about the teachers and how long they have been teaching Montessori, and the average # of years they have spent at this school.