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People Involved: School

Carol Powell (Head teacher)

People Involved: College/Charity

Barbara Isaacs/ Philip Bujak

Positive outcomes to date

• Established Montessori in the Foundation Stage.
• Staff fully committed and trained.
• Improved results directly attributed to Montessori philosophy.

Future Strategy Plan

The school is committed to:

• continuing to offer Montessori training to their teachers
• working with MCI on joint delivery of the training
• exploring extension of the Montessori Curriculum into Year 1 during the next two years

Information

Q. What is the project all about ?

During 2004 discussions took place between Philip Bujak, Chief Executive of The Montessori St. Nicholas Charity and Carol Powell Headteacher of Gorton Mount Primary School in Manchester. These discussions were intended to develop the idea of introducing Montessori methods of teaching into Gorton Mount school in order to try to add value to the educational experience of the pupils at the school and because Carol Powell herself believed in the holistic approach and methods used in Montessori teaching.

These discussions culminated in a joint proposal being put first to the governors of Gorton Mount School and the trustees of the charity and then, with their approval, to the Minister of State for Children who at that time was The Rt. Hon. Margaret Hodge MBE, MP. Out of these discussions came an agreement to jointly fund with a total of £80,000 the project at Gorton Mount.

Q. What are the project aims ?

Essentially the project aims to demonstrate that the introduction of Montessori methods of teaching into a state primary school environment can substantially and positively impact on the learning experience of children at the school. Gorton Mount is a wonderful school with a great staff who face some serious and challenging problems typical of many inner city schools. Gorton is the third poorest ward in England and Wales, mobility in the school is high and there are 36 different languages in the school. Until 2003 the school was in special measures but the work of the Headteacher, staff and governors has seen the school taken out of special measures and now we hope that the addition of Montessori method will aid this improvement.

Q. How is the project going to be measures and over what timescale ?

The initial phase of the project is limited to September 2005 to April 2006 at which point we will assess what has happened in the school and whether we can recommend that the project is extended currently we are introducing Montessori teaching into the Foundation Stage only with 100 pupils in the project cohort.

The whole impact is being measured by Dr. Liz Brooker at the Institute of Education who will be making regular data collection visits to the school and preparing a final report by Easter 2006.

Q. What is the role of the Montessori St. Nicholas Charity ?

The trustees of the Montessori St. Nicholas Charity have agreed to back the Gorton Mount project in its entirety believing that this is a valuable opportunity to test Montessori teaching in a mainstream state school environment. The partnership with the governors of Gorton Mount has been a positive one and together we hope to be able to make a lasting and profound difference to the educational attitudes and experience of the children and staff at Gorton Mount. The charity has allocated in excess of £50,000 from the 2005-2006 budget together with asking Chief Executive Philip Bujak to manage the whole project on behalf of the charity alongside Headteacher Carol Powell. This also involves close liaison with Dr. Liz Brooker at The Institute of Education who will be benchmarking the impact of Montessori on the whole school environment.

Philip Bujak was also responsible for putting together the Montessori team for Gorton Mount of Michelle Wisby from MSA Region 9 ( Training & Resources), Sue Briggs Chair of MSA Region 9 (Research), Georgina Hood Chair of MSA region 10 ( Parents & Training) and Sarah Rowledge of absolute Angels Montessori School in Essex ( Seconded Teacher & project co-ordinator). This team have been working immensely hard already preparing the project and laying the foundations for success that we all hope to see.

Q. About Sarah Rowledge.

Sarah is Head of Absolute Angels Montessori School in Coggeshall in Essex. After reading for her first and second degrees at Oxford in Pure & applied Biology, Sarah went on to work in the restaurant and fashion sectors in the mid to late 1990s before starting work for three years as a Montessori assistant in a London based Montessori school. In 1997 Sarah was awarded her Montessori Diploma and then in 1997 decided to open her own school in Coggeshall which today is thriving and has not only a wonderful local reputation but tremendous parental support.

Commenting on why she turned to Montessori, Sarah says :

"I am a Montessori enthusiast. From the first week of working in a Montessori environment I knew that this was special, something I had to learn about and somewhere that I wanted to be. By having the innate trust in that dynamic link between child, environment and teacher, you have a winning combination, and we see it daily work its miracles."

Sarah has agreed to work full time leading the Gorton Project between August 2005 and April 2006, leaving her school in the safe hands of her staff, and living in Manchester as part of the Gorton Mount teaching staff. Sarah will be teaching and training at Gorton full time and has not only the rest of the team and charity behind her but the good wishes of all her parents and children at her school not to mention the support of the Montessori community itself.

Getting the classrooms ready for the start of term - Well done our team !!

There has been no let up for the Gorton Mount project team of Montessori Heads who, over the past three weeks, have been hard at it moving into the newly decorated classrooms at Gorton Mount. Headteacher Carol Powell together with Michelle Wisby and Sarah Rowledge designed the building and decorating works needed to upgrade and modernise the Foundation Stage classrooms at Gorton and then moved in the new equipment so generously donated by Artful Dodgers in Blackburn ( www.artfuldodgers.co.uk) and Community Playthings (www.communityplaythings.co.uk).

The classrooms now look fantastic and give the children a wonderful prepared environment in which to work together with some donated and largely brand new Montessori equipment with which to work. Well done to the team for the huge efforts they have put in over the last two weeks to be ready for the start of term on September 7th.

Much of our equipment was supplied by the generousity of Community Playthings and Artful Dodgers. Their hand made equipment is outstanding in terms of materials and craftsmanship and we thoroughly recommend their products. Further information can be found in their detailed adverts in Montessori International magazine

April 2006 :

Interim Report Published.

In February the charity together with Carol Powell, Headteacher at Gorton Mount, produced the interim report on the Gorton Mount Project. The report was supplemented by a letter from an HMI who had visited and inspected Gorton Mounts Foundation Stage in January. The findings were a vindication of many aspects of Montessori ethos and practice. Pupils were seen to be learning the majority of the time, engaged in purposeful activity, acting independently and teachers were teaching. All of these would be commonplace in any Montessori school where pupil teacher ratios are so small but for the method to work where teacher : pupil ratios were so high- up to 1-20 at Gorton Mount was impressive to say the least. Sarah Rowledge, who has been leading the project on behalf of St. Nicholas, was delighted with the findings and is to be congratulated on her fantastic commitment to this ground breaking project.

The DfES were asked for extension funding to be matched by the St. Nicholas Charity and we are awaiting their response. A full two page article on these findings was published in The Independent on 16th March 2006.

January 2007.

Gorton Mount Final Report & Next Phase of the project.

The first phase of the Gorton Mount Project ended in the summer of 2006. Just over £80,000 was invested between the government and the St. Nicholas Charity and over 100 pupils at Gorton Mount and their teachers had been working with the Montessori method for two terms. Of course there had been many challenges to meet and the charity, as expected, leant a great deal from the experience. We also faced many inhibiting factors. The full report on the first year will be completed in the Spring of 2007 and available on the charity website for anyone to read. This report will contain a 360 degree look at the project and where lessons can be learnt as well as where progress was made and progress there certainly was.

The second phase of the project is now underway with the training to full Montessori diploma level of 14 staff at Gorton Mount. This is again a collaborative project between the school, Manchester LEA and the St. Nicholas Charity. At a cost of £20,000, these 14 staff will become the first cohort of state school teachers to also hold a full Montessori qualification to further enable them to make a real difference to the learning experience of their children. The training is being provided by Montessori centre International ( MCI ) under the guidance of Barbara Isaacs.

Please click the image to download the Montessori case study on Gorton Mount, Manchester.

Contact Details

head@gortonmount.manchester.sch.uk

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