Montessori warns of name scam

PARENTS have been warned not to be duped by pre-schools or crèches promoting themselves as Montessori schools.

The national accreditation body for the world-famous teaching system said that hundreds of schools are falsely operating under the Montessori name.

The Irish Montessori Education Board (IMEB), responsible for accrediting the schools here, advised parents in advance of the new school year to ensure that any Montessori they consider for their children is approved by them. It said this would assure them their child would be educated in the Montessori tradition.

“There are hundreds of schools being advertised all over the country, trading under the Montessori name, when in fact a lot of them are crèches or pre-schools and are not staffed by teachers with a Montessori qualification,” said IMEB spokes- person Noele McEvoy.

She said that parents choose the Montessori system because it is synonymous with quality, child- centred education. There are almost 100 such schools listed on the board’s website, www.imebtrust.org.

“There is a very clear distinction between Mont-essori education and other pre-school programmes. Crèches and pre-schools, which provide a very necessary service for working parents, are not necessarily Montessori schools,” Ms McEvoy said.

“Montessori teachers are early childhood educators and not child minders. The Montessori approach is based on a belief that a child’s total development, concentration and intelligence are best developed by their own activity in an environment which has been prepared to meet their ongoing needs,” she said.

The IMEB was founded in 1997 in consultation with the Department of Education to provide an overall accreditation body for Montessori schools.