R9 Members Learn About Under 3s in Nursery Settings

On 14th June Region 9 held their summer meeting. There was a great turn out with 80 Montessorians travelling from far across the region. Barbara Isaacs inspired everyone with her talk on Integrating under 3s into their Nurseries. The venue in Coggeshall allowed everyone to see a broad range of environments from Little Treasures (0-2yrs), through Absolute Angels (2-5yrs) and beyond to Soaring High Montessori Primary, inspiring all with visions of developing their own settings to this high standard.

Over lunch attendees were able to tour the settings, talk to Sue Gasgoyne about her Treasure Basket Company and catch up with all the Montessori training organisations based in the region.

Many comments from the day reflected the impressive standard of our speaker with her thought provoking presentation.

• Very relevant, especially as most of my key children are 2yrs, lots of ideas and ways to work with them. Thank you!
• Relevant issues regarding 2yr olds with positive suggestions to aid and understand the importance of our role.
• Lunch was fantastic.
• Enjoyed every part informative, brilliant, great ideas and fantastic to look around the school, nursery and treasure baskets! Very encouraging
• I really enjoyed seeing colleagues inspired. These meetings really make a difference.

The next Region 9 meeting will be held on Saturday 28th February 2009 with the venue in Ipswich School. Dr Grounds from Colchester Primary Opthalmic Centre will present her Multi Sensory Programme. With the introduction of the new EYFS all settings will be expected to come up to the high standards found in Montessori settings. The gap that differentiated Montessori from other schools has narrowed and everyone needs to find additional marketing messages to redefine our unique selling points. Listening to Dr Annette Grounds bring the science of our practice into the 21st century should increase our opportunities to explain to parents why they should choose a Montessori environment over any other.