southern montessori school

[Guest seekingsunshine]

Hi everyone

 

was wondering if anyone on here had children who go to this school?or know anyone who does?

 

i've not had a look round the school yet, but are impressed by their results on myschool website...BUT i was wondering as it only goes to Year 7- where do the kids tend to go afterwoods????

 

if anyone has any idea would love to know lol!

 

thanks

[coolerking]

Hi everyone

 

was wondering if anyone on here had children who go to this school?or know anyone who does?

 

i've not had a look round the school yet, but are impressed by their results on myschool website...BUT i was wondering as it only goes to Year 7- where do the kids tend to go afterwoods????

 

if anyone has any idea would love to know lol!

 

thanks

 

Try the Steiner Waldorf in Willunga - I cannot get on their website though, but they are definitely there.

 

cPanel®

 

Waldorf education - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Cooler

[Guest Lulujim]

Hiya, My daughter goes to the pre-school there. LOVES it - has been asking all weekend when she's next going - she's gutted it's not on tomorrow!

The staff are all older which I like as it makes them more experienced & calmer! (Also nice as our parents are in the Uk and they're sort of like granny figures to my daughter)

They run a very good educational programme and offer Early Entry (so before they start school to prepare them) which I think is great, esp as they start later here and I think my daughter is ready for more stimulation already - let alone in 6 months time.

I had a tour of the school and was very impressed. The facilities aren't all singing, all dancing like others but the staff are very caring and the open plan & large classrooms was a lovely thing to see. They still offer private music tuition, sports, extra curricular activities etc.. and a big part of the school's ethos is parent participation. There are regular 'Beach Nights' and volunteer parent helpers, something I hope to be part of next year.

On the tour I spoke in depth to the the reception teachers and they showed me individual's work to show how each child is taught to their individual capabilities.. and the hands-on practical approach was used in all subjects. She said instead of being told " you need to do this now" - they are told ''there are 3 things that need to be completed by the end of the lesson - you can choose which order to do them in but they all need to be done". Personally i think this will suit my daughter's personality much better!

I watched the children doing their own thing and getting on independently - they were all confident and nice children from what i saw.

Another bonus for me is the small classes.. there were 18 children in one class up to 22 as the max. most other schools are in the late 20s or even early 30s

The myschool results are amazing - esp as they don't even teach to the National Curriculum - but the Montessori one - and getting these excellent results.

I feel very happy with this choice (and the lower fees!) and please PM if you want to know anything more! Alexis

[Guest Bather's]

Hi there, i hope i am doing this right. still very new to posting!!

 

i am so glad to see your post as i have just been looking at this school on the internet. we are expecting to arrive in Adelaide mid Jan and i keep reading that i should have a place arranged for my son 6 months before we arrive. he will be 7 in Dec and im not sure what year he will go into.

can you provide any advise on the years groups. also what is a school card im abit confussed with the fees!!

 

thanks

 

Danielle & Karl

[Guest DJ4]

Hello

 

I'm not actually from the UK originally but I've come across your post. My children aged 8 years and 10 years, attend Southern Montessori School and have done so since reception. We moved to SA from another Australian state aproximately five years ago. Quality and outcome of education is of prime importance to us. We chose this school over eight overs which were of initial interest to us. Besides our interest in Montessori philosophy and all which that entails, what else attracted us to this particular school was the open-plan setting, small class numbers, collaborative parental involvement and exceptional teaching staff. The fees are low for the high quality of education gained. In fact, if you research the fees of other Montessori Schools in differring Australian states, you will be quite surprised at the difference in fees. Our children are thriving in this setting. The NAPLAN results are exceptional (my daughter does very well with these tests also). However, focus is not placed solely on academic performance but rather upon working towards students' overall wellbeing and development. Hence, the NAPLAN results are indicative of all that which comes beforehand. The secondary schools I have visited in preparation for my children's continueing education thereafter, have reported how well previous students of this school do in their schools. Also, at this stage, there are strategic discussions taking place on extending through to a Southern Montessori Middle School.

 

All the best with it.

[mochinbach]

Hi All,

I wanted to update this thread with my own experiences. Mostly, because I took this thread as great advice when I selected Southern  Monti (SMS) for my school and I have now had to remove my child from there. 

SMS had a great reputation and was really hard to get into a few years ago.  I have a feeling that things have changed a little since 2011.  There's a new principal to start with and it's much easier to get your child in.  My child was there for one year of pre-school and 3 terms of Reception before I removed them. I kept giving them the benefit of the doubt and hoping that I should just "trust" them (as I was encouraged to do… by them) but, in the end, they failed my child and failed to convince me that they knew how to fix things. 

Here are some of the things I experienced - Good and bad to help anyone making the same choice:

The vast majority of parents at the school are lovely and there is genuinely a lovely community there. Most of the community I connected with were made up of the parents and carers I bumped into at drop off and pickup and we still have regular dinners together.  Really nice people

The kids, on the whole are wonderful, kind and courteous. They're also very independent - which is a strong part of the monti philosophy which was great.

The curriculum is somewhere between what's in the Montessori Curriculum and the Australian Curriculum.  However, without my explicitly asking (and giving several weeks notice) not once was I ever told where my child was up to academically.  In fact, they failed to notice some significant learning and cognitive functions my child was experiencing.  I called a meeting to discuss my child's report wherein he got the lowest mark for "love of learning" - a shock to us because at home learning consumes our spare time. After a long conversation about techniques used in class and how my child was responding, when I asked about the structure and content of the report, I was pretty much told that the reports where just things that they do to meet the government requirements. That as an educator myself (I’m a teacher too) I should understand that they're done quickly and not really with much deep thought and I shouldn’t worry about them too much because well... they're not that important or accurate. ?!?!? – not my professional opinion of such a vital document tbh. 

One morning, after dropping my child off to class, leaving them with their teacher and returning to our car, my husband was flagged down by a parent asking if this was our child.  Our 5 year old had left the classroom, wandered across the oval and was looking for their dad.  If this well-meaning parent hadn't stopped them, our child could have been in real danger.  This happened after the bell had gone.

When returned to the classroom the teacher didn't even seem to have noticed they'd left. They pushed the whole incident back onto our five year old. The fact that the gates are left wide open. Gates right next to the R class or that the teacher didn't know where our child was were brushed off.  We were told that closing the gates "was a can of worms" that the principal was reluctant to work through?? This was never addressed properly. The gates are left unlocked and open to this day. 

On this matter, we were also told that "duty of care" was a little different in my child's class and that it started when they were sat on the "mat" after the bell.  The school states in its policy documentation (and in its induction process meetings) that duty of care starts at 8:30am whilst staff are on duty in the playground. To add to the confusion of this statement from the principal, when we looked in the classroom we found that there was no "mat" on the floor in the classroom. 

On the morning after we'd met with the principal and gone through these new rules with our child, a relief teacher was taking the class.  kids were running in and out of the room for a good 15 minutes after the bell.  My husband stood there, waiting for duty of care to be handed over - signs of which were that my child was on the mat and the register was being taken. This hadn’t happened 15 minutes after the bell had gone.  He felt so strange standing there that he had to leave and then he let the principal know that there was not mat and that the kids were running in and out... No consistency or routine for 5/6 year olds.

My child was learning to read at 2 and so we chose SMS because they said that they would meet the child where they were at.  Unfortunately, it seems to me that they are unable to describe or define where a child is at in any real terms.  How they then purport to plan from that lack of information is unclear to me.  When he joined the pre-school from another Montessori setting (we'd recently changed suburbs) he had readers and site words each week. That Monty was meeting him where he was at and they had a great idea of who he was/is.  At the pre-school at southern monty I had to fight to get them to give him the readers that the students in the top end of cycle one have.

At the 6 months in mark - when we had our first teacher interview, I was very excited that my child had been writing whole sentences at home and I had assumed this was as a result of the teaching on site.  When I thanked the teacher I was told that they had never seen them write.  They had no idea what my child was able to do.  My child was labelled with a standardised idea (gained from previous experiences I guess) of what a 4 year old should be doing and was made to do that work only.  There was no attempt to meet his interests or needs as far as I could see. This continued for a while. We stayed only for the Friday program. 

The Friday program is where the pre-school get to work with the Reception teacher.  This was where the teacher actually noticed how my child worked and what they knew.  We felt his needs were being met and were excited that Reception would be different.  

It turns out that we were wrong there too.  The three terms of reception, plus the 1 year of pre-school taught my child how to dumb down, stay quiet, conform and make loads of cool friends.  To my kid, school was about socialising. It has a great ethos when it comes to community and friendships/relationships but does not have a strong grasp on academic achievement or attainment. My child came to learn that school was where you learnt about how to make friends and play. That was pretty much all it was.  We've moved to a new school this term.  Fingers crossed things get better for him.

At SMS they are stuck in their ways, they won't listen to the parents, they dismiss concerns to readily and the board is unable/unwilling to hold anyone to account.  In the last term I know of 5 families who have either left or have made plans to leave.  

There are some wonderful aspects to this school but we had so many serious concerns that we had no choice but to remove our child.  Even the way they choose to treat parents is below par. I did not have a good experience here at all.  That doesn't mean it wouldn't be a great fit for you  and your family.  We did have some specific needs that needed to be met and they were to unskilled to meet them properly. 

Please know that I tried hard to work with the school. I was on the P+F committee briefly.  When asked I always supported their policy and other developments.  However, in doing so, I had senior management laugh in my face, blatantly ignore me, say "no" when I asked for help (whilst shoving their hand in my face) and more....  Not a good experience. A very bad, very stressful one. I am so glad it's all in the rear view mirror.

Please note that I am not posting this because I want to defame a school. I"m not angry. I just want anyone who comes across this thread to know my experience. I genuinely don't want another family to go through what we did. 

[Fanch]

This is a great school, with great nurturing teachers and lots of support for kids of all abilities. I have my two sons there and they are thriving in a very hands-on environment.

The curriculum is awesome and they have a very high standard with literacy and numeracy, which explain the NAPLAN results. I also wanted to emphasis that they do not prepare for the test as many private schools do. My kids come back from school inspired by science experiments they want to redo at home and talk about global warming and endangered animals... 

The management has been supportive whenever I have approached them. 

One of my sons needs extra support and has two SSO's and a learning disability specialist to help him. He is also doing letter blending exercises with the principal every day. My older son was in another private school prior to joining Montessori and that kind of support was not available...

I would recommend this school to anyone looking for a tailored education for their kids in a  small community, that doesn't promote themselves with glossy pamphlets and huge marketing campaign (that have nothing to do with what's actually happening inside the classroom)...