Southern Montessori School, O'Sullivan

Southern Montessori offers the authentic method of educating and growing a child from birth to adolescent, preparing them for adulthood. We have been affiliated with Southern Montessori for more than 16 years with both our children having the benefit of attending from toddlers to year nine. The support, holistic development opportunities and application of Maria Montessori's method has assisted our children develop and grow into happy well functioning young adults. Take a tour, visit and see the learning environments and see for yourself how the teaching and support staff can facilitate your child's development.

Southern Montessori School is the most nurturing education environment I have been in. Being a small, tight-knit community the staff, students and families know and take care of each other with the utmost respect and kindness. The words nurturing, respect and kindness are my biggest takeaways from my time here because they are not only verbalised by and to both children and adults but practised in classrooms, playgrounds, staff rooms and hallways all the time. As a pre-service teacher on placement here, I felt so included and valued that I continued on as a volunteer. Additionally, with a one and a half year old daughter myself, this school is now on the top of my list for her! Previously I have also attended Baby Time which was excellent and before that the Montessori Foundation training course, too. All my experiences have been nothing but positive here and I feel so fortunate to have been a part of this community and to have this school in my local area.

Great school with great teachers and lots of support for kids of all abilities. I have my two sons there and they are thriving in a very hands on environment.

As an advocate for education, and a supporter of the great work that teachers do, this is a review I've not relished writing. However, it's a review that I feel needs sharing for the parents considering this school. Pros: - The are some lovely families and children that attend this school, and we've made some great friendships through the community. - There are some dedicated and passionate teachers trying to deliver a quality education Cons: - The leadership of the school and the board, have made some terribly poor judgements. Behaved extremely unprofessionally, at times bordering on rude. More so, they have shown on several occasions tendencies to bully both staff and parents. Their culture is nothing short of toxic. - The school have very woolly policies. We had direct experience in relation to a duty of care issue. Where our son left school grounds, after he had been taken to class and left in the teachers care. Once again leadership decided to place the blame for this at the feet of anyone / anything but themselves. We had numerous meetings, made numerous suggestions and nothing changed. - The school has a healthy food ethos, which is great in principal. However, children are often encouraged out to break time and do not get taught the value of actually taking time to eat the healthy food so often ended the day hungry & cranky. - The premise of the education provided at this school is “To meet your child where they are at”. As the parent of a child with specific, identified, learning needs, the school fails to adapt the education they provide to actually meet the needs of your children. Their version of Montessori has no room for gifted pedagogy. In fact, their understanding of meeting the need of gifted children was extremely disappointing and detrimental to our child. Please take time to carefully consider if this is the environment you want your child to be educated in.

My family and I love Southern Montessori School. We couldn’t be more pleased with the love and care and attention they get from the amazing staff. Very community orientated and I would recommend it to anyone without hesitation. The loving environment, the organization, and the teacher instructions are what I believe to be the key success of Southern Montessori School.