Dr. Maria Montessori

Montessori was the first woman to become a doctor of medicine in Rome. Through her work as a doctor, she became interested in child development. From there, she opened her own school in Rome. This was the beginning of the Montessori legacy. She saw that children learn best by actively doing, and that happy self-motivated learners form positive images of themselves as confident, successful people. She created specially designed resources to foster independence and a love for learning from an early age.

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The Montessori approach is holistic and aims to develop the whole child. Fundamental to the approach is the belief that a child’s early years from birth to six are the period when they have the greatest capacity to learn.

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“In the early years of life, the foundations of physical and also of psychic health are laid. In these years, the child not only increases in size but passes through great transformations. This is the age in which language and movement develop.

The child must be safeguarded in order that these activities may develop freely."