Community Montessori School

The Three Year Cycle

In the Children’s House and Elementary classes the mixed-age span for each community is 3 years, with the children staying in the same class with the same guide for those three years.

Communities of Learners

These mixed-aged groupings create communities of learners! The youngest children look up to the oldest children who are accomplished at moving slowly, speaking quietly and focusing on their work. The oldest students remember how the older children in their first year helped them, and so consider it an honor to fill that role, now that they have “come of age”. The benefits are many for all the age levels, but for the oldest children, assuming these positions of leadership is, along with their more academic work, a mark of achievement. This achievement is not for awards or outward recognition, but of self confidence and a sense of having “arrived”. As a result, Community Montessori requests that each child who enters the Children’s House does so with the strong expectation of continuing through his or her kindergarten (Children’s House) or end-cycle (Elementary) year.

Class size

In the Children’s House and Elementary communities, the ideal class size ranges from 28 to 30 children. Classes are large to allow each age group a number of peers and also to reinforce the need and ability of the child to become self-reliant and independent. The classroom is truly a community in which the guide is neither the center of attention nor the sole source of learning. The guide is there to ensure that each child is exposed to all areas of learning and that he is given those lessons at the right time.

© 2010 Community Montessori School