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The Montessori Approach

Why Montessori?

Montessori is tailored to each child.

Our teachers are trained to observe and understand each child's unique learning style, interests, and progress, which ensures students are engaged and able to advance at their own pace.

Montessori makes learning fun.

At Aidan, learning is an adventure. Children take ownership of their education and are genuinely excited to explore new challenges, whether it’s a complex math problem or an independent research project.

Montessori creates future-ready students.

Continuous learning, persuasive communication, emotional intelligence, leading with vision, adapting with agility, and seeing solutions where others do not—these Montessori outcomes are crucial for success in our changing world.

Montessori is proven to work.

Dr. Maria Montessori developed her approach more than a century ago, based on careful observations of children's behavior. Recent scientific studies provide strong support for Montessori's major insights.

The child's development follows a path of successive stages of independence, and our knowledge of this must guide us in our behavior towards them. We have to help the child to act, choose, and think for themself.Maria Montessori

The Montessori method is a developmental approach to education. Teachers are trained to respond to the particular characteristics that children display at each stage of development. Classrooms are prepared to support children at each stage as they continue to learn, grow, and gain new levels of independence.

Individualized Instruction

Montessori education is individualized. Children receive lessons based the teacher's observation and assessment of each individual student's readiness and interest. Students have the opportunity to spend much of their time in the classroom engaged in work that they have chosen themselves. 

Teachers and students are not bound by a rigid curriculum. Students can move through sequences of concepts and lessons in any subject as quickly or as methodically as needed. Teachers are able decide whether it is best for a student to skip ahead, or whether it is time to revisit an earlier lesson. They are also trained to modify lessons to suit each child, or to devise new impromptu lessons to take advantage of a moment when a child is ready to take on something new.

Multi-Age  Classrooms

In our Primary, Lower Elementary, and Upper Elementary levels, children at Aidan remain in the same classroom for a 3-year cycle. 

Bringing students together across age and grade levels deepens individual learning and community building. It allows them to access a broader curriculum, advance in developmentally appropriate stages, learn from older students, and mentor their younger classmates.

Younger children are able to observe lessons being given to older children, making them aware of concepts that they have not yet learned. Observing the lessons received by younger students helps older students to solidify their command of concepts that they have already learned. 

The multi-age setting also ensures that every student always has peers in the classroom who are working at a similar level on a particular subject, even if they are moving through a particular sequence of concepts more deliberately or more rapidly than others who are the same age.

Cultivating Independence

The overarching goal of the Montessori approach is to help foster the development of independence. 

Independence takes different forms at each stage of development. In the YCC and Primary, students are focused on gaining physical independence. In Elementary, students are focused on intellectual and social independence. 

As children move through their time at Aidan, their developing independence allows them to explore their own interests and preferences. This leads them to begin to know themselves as learners, enabling them them to take full advantage of the academic freedom offered at Aidan, and preparing them to tackle future challenges with confidence in their own capacities. 

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