Cardiff Montessori School
CARDIFF MONTESSORI TUITION SERVICE
The Cardiff Montessori tuition service allows students (Years 7, 8 and 9) who are currently home educated to attend 3 mornings a week (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday). During these mornings they have access to a tutor (Maths, English and Science) who give lessons and are there to help guide and advise students with their work. They are able to work alongside other secondary students and collaborate on projects. It is an opportunity for those who wish to enjoy home education to still partake and join our learning community without having to commit to a school place.
Fees are £350 a month. (The service operates 39 weeks a year, which roughly equates to £36 for the 3 hour morning session)
The tuition service is operated by a not for profit organisation (company number 14111178). We are unable to accept students with a statement or IDP into this service as it is not connected to the local Authority).
(Please note this is a new service, not a school place, planned to start in January 2023)
WHAT TO EXPECT
Students signing up to attend the Cardiff Montessori Tuition Service must be home educated or having their educational provision elsewhere. The tuition service is not a school place. All students must enroll for 3 mornings a week 9am-12pm. Much like in a Montessori work cycle students are free to work on chosen areas of study during this period. A tutor is available in each session- both to provide general guidance and to deliver lessons. There are focus area for each of the 3 days, with one day dedicated to Maths, another to English and another to Science. The greatest advantage of our tuition service is not simply the access to a tutor and study space but the Montessori ethos and methodology that underpins everything that takes place.
Montessori recognized that that are 4 stages (often referred to as planes) of development. The first place form 0-6 years is one of self construction, where the child is saying to us "help me to do it myself". The second plane is the one in which moral reasoning is developing and the child is asking us to "help me to think for myself". The third plane child, the secondary aged child , is now undergoing social construction. Much like the first plane child they want to do things for themselves but this time what they seek can be articulated as "help us to do it for ourselves". Unlike the first plane child they now want to do things with their peers and to achieve their aims as a collective.
In the 6-12 years they have learnt through the Montessori elementary program how society works and now they need to experience it. This is where they take the 12 years of construction and experience they have had and enter with it into the next phase, leaving childhood behind as the birth of the adult begins.
Montessori recognizes that this is a time of fragility as great changes in the physical body as well as mental and cognitive functions are taking place. They need independence from the family unit, while still requiring support from an adult guide who understands and loves teenagers. They need experiential learning, to be able to design projects and run enterprises instead of rigid lessons. They must learn how to work as part of a group and discover what are their unique capabilities and how they can contribute to their community and the world around them.
“Education should not limit itself to seeking new methods for a mostly arid transmission of knowledge:
its aim must be to give the necessary aid to human development.”
Maria Montessori