English info

Welcome to the website of Montessorischool Azalea!

Our school:
As a montessorischool we strive to help each child develop to its fullest potential. We encourage children to act independently and to make responsible and conscious decisions while at school. In our calm and structured school environment children, teachers and parents feel safe, their accomplishments are seen and their concerns are heard. We offer inspiring and contemporary education. Together with parents and caregivers, our school aims to support each child in their own personal development.

Central to the Montessori approach is the individual development of every child. Each child learns and develops at their own pace and in their own way. Our role as a school is to constantly see how we can help each child develop in an optimal way. 

Maria Montessori (1870-1952) is the founder of the montessori educational approach. Montessori education has been around for some time, but it’s more contemporary than ever. Children learn to make conscious decisions, regulate their own behaviour and take responsibility for their own actions. They learn how to care for themselves, their classmates and their environment. 

Maria Montessori believed that children are naturally motivated to learn and develop and that the role of adults is to mold the environment in such a way that learning can take place in as natural a way as possible. Montessori believed that children who are at liberty to choose and act freely within an environment prepared according to her model would act spontaneously for optimal development. This “prepared environment”, which is also present at our school, contains many specific materials designed by Maria Montessori, which children can use to learn and discover all kinds of things. The teachers and the classmates are also part of the “prepared environment”. Group and individual lessons, during which children are challenged to learn and cooperate with each other, play an important part in the learning process of each child.  

At our school we work with mixed aged classrooms (e.g., combined 1st and 2nd grade, or combined 4th, 5th and 6th grades). Mixed aged classrooms are an integral part of our educational approach. By being in a class with students of different ages, children can experiment with taking on different roles and positions in a classroom setting. In this way they can discover and develop different facets of themselves. In our experience classrooms composed of mixed age groups can have a positive effect on the sphere in the class and in the school as a whole.  By mixing classrooms children get to know more children throughout the whole school and develop more consideration for each others needs and talents. 

If we want children to develop to their fullest potential we need to keep asking ourselves “what does this child need at this moment?” Our ultimate goal is that children will start to ask themselves this same question. ‘What do I need in order to learn? What do I want to learn, what do I need to learn, and what can I learn, and how do I go about achieving this?’  Self-dependence (or Independence) and self responsibility are important key values in our educational approach, which are reflected in everything we do in the classrooms with our students. 

Signing up for an elementary school:
Around your child’s 3rd birthday you will receive a aanmeldformulier from the municipality of Amsterdam together with a brochure explaining the admission procedures/policy.  
You can sign your child in to a school by handing in this form aanmeldformulier at the school of your first choice. Our school organises information sessions on a regular basis. Should you be interested you can find the dates and times of these sessions on the page informatieochtenden.