« Between the age of 3 and 6, the children will have benefited from a structured atmosphere in which they have been able to grow up, evolve, develop their potential and become autonomous. The scientific material discovered and created by Maria Montessori will have enabled them to understand mathematical or language-related notions through their senses. The global surroundings in which they have evolved will mean that they have established independence and discovered and developed their personalities. In that regard, the nursery school, in the form of “Maison des Enfants” is regarded as a place which helps their development and assists them in life. At about the age of 6, children change and develop considerably. Now in primary school, they need to benefit from an “adapted method which introduces them to all aspects of culture; not through detailed notions as part of an established programme but by developing as many areas of interest that the children may have. These seeds planted in their minds at this stage will subsequently spring into life as and when they are ready and they will enable the children to become individuals suited to the rapidly changing times in which we live. »
To Educate the Human Potential, Desclée de Brouwer, p.16
Our Montessori environments offer the pupils a wide variety of learning areas. Our bilingual nursery classes provide pupils with knowledge, manners and social skills through exercises in practical life, basic geometry and mathematics, reading and writing.
In our primary class, pupils improve their written language and reading skills and move on to more advanced mathematics and geometry. They also broaden their knowledge of geography, history and botany and acquire a considerable amount of general knowledge.
Outside the classroom, the nursery and primary pupils are offered a full range of activities. The garden and restaurant provide the children with opportunities to maintain their social ties, while the gym, kitchen and art room offer them opportunities to develop their personality.
Children go through a number of different phases during language acquisition: speech, writing, reading, grammar learning, etc. These phases are the product of lengthy internal work which goes hand in hand with a long and slow preparation period.
As Luxembourg is a trilingual country, the education system is also trilingual. In the manner of public primary education where literacy is taught in German and French is learnt for the first time in the 5th term of cycle 2, we teach in these two languages at our school. On the one hand, the aim is to provide a response to the principles “of sensitive periods” (the child finds it easy to learn at this age, by absorption) and, on the other hand, to ensure that pupils who enter the Luxembourg education system attain a high linguistic level and are able to follow this teaching with ease. Furthermore, in primary school, we introduce children to English, the most widely spoken language in the world.
In that respect, we follow governmental guidelines which advocate multilingualism from the very youngest age as a guarantee of academic success..