蒙特梭利國際學校

funnymommy

elmostoney - may I ask why you think your son is suitable for Montessori but not your daughter? What sort of characteristics do you think you need to be successful in Montessori? I am thinking about my sons and whether they are suitable or not, and I would be interested to know your opinion. By the way, from another thread, you said your children went to Best Concept Montessori. My 3 1/2 year old son goes there but he just started so I don't have an opinion yet about its suitability.

funnymommy

Elmostoney
I agree with you entirely. I did the IB Diploma Program many years ago, and I had no difficulties at all changing from GCSEs to IB, without ever having heard of the IB until I was 16. I think if you come from a sound primary and secondary education, then you are definately capable of taking advantage of many streams of education.

I also don't understand the obsession nowadays with IB. IB emphasizes whole child development, inquiry based learning instead of rote learning, activity (played) and project base instead of textbook based, developing intellectual curiosity and community service. As many elementary teachers told me, this is exactly what school should do anyways, whether or  not they are IB accredited.
I also applied for IMS, but we applied late so havent gotten an interview yet. My 4 year old son is in an IB school currently. I am not sure that there is really that much difference between the two.
I think instead of worrying so much in the Primary years about IB or Montessori, the more relevant question should be which school is best at implementing and putting into practice the goals of a curriculum, which school has caring, loving teachers who put the children first and have a stable teacher population (in many IS, the teachers change every 2 teachers).

funnymommy

Elmostoney, what will you decide for your son? I have learnt a lot from reading your posts. Have you decided whether you take ICA or IMS for your son? As you stated yourself, it seems that IMS is one of the few truly bilingual IS, with a great focus on Mandarin. One point you could consider - I was once told that an issue with Montessori is that the Montessori method is highly structured and planned out in detailed. So to the child, he may think that there is an element of free choice (you can do activity A or activity B) but in fact, the Montessori curriculum is rigid in that there is a list of material that each child needs to cover by a certain stage (so in fact, you have to do activities a - z,), and there is a prescribed order to a majority of it. On one hand, thats great because I sometimes wonder if the IB is too vague and too focused on soft skills (like environmental awareness and cultural diversity) at the expense of the core basics like literacy and numeracy. On the other hand, is it too regimented?
Very happy to have the opportunity to share with other moms