Montessori celebrates 100 years amid renewed interest

This week, celebrations to mark the centenary are being held at many of the 22,000 Montessori schools in 100 countries around the world.

In the UK 50,000 children attend Montessori nurseries and schools.

The movement is currently experiencing a wave of interest from policy makers, following research that found that five-year-olds who attend Montessori schools were better at playing co-operatively with other children and had better maths and English skills than their peers in other settings (News, 5 October 2006).

Louise Livingston, chair of the UK Montessori Centenary Committee, said, 'The UK's education system is struggling to find ways to achieve even basic levels of reading, writing and maths among our children. But the Montessori approach offers a tried and tested solution that is working now in primary and nursery schools. The Government must roll out, not roll back, the choice of Montessori education.'

Montessori organisations have also been campaigning against the revised Code of Practice for nursery education grant funding.

Ms Livingston said, 'Planned changes to the nursery grant will put many schools out of business and force others to go private, pushing up costs for parents.'

Details of centenary events will be posted at www.montessori.

org.uk/Centenary.php.

Famous people who attended Montessori schools include actor and director George Clooney, co-founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and Nobel Prize for Literature author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.