Hi all,
my husband and I are currently living in the south west area of WA, but we are looking at relocating to the Deloraine area in Tassie. I am a primary school teacher and have been teaching in a Montessori school for five years now. To my surprise, there are no Montessori schools in Tassie! There are however a few schools that have a similar approach (catering to individuals etc) and I would really appreciate your opinion about these schools.
I would be interested to hear any feedback on the Hagley Farm school, the Launceston Preparatory School and Giant Steps in Deloraine. Also, if you know of any other (state) schools that incorporate the Montessori philosophy, I would love to hear about them.
Thanks so much for your help!
1
Tassie schools
Started by
freckles
, Dec 12 2010 06:08 PM
2 replies to this topic
#1 OFFLINE
freckles
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Posted 12 December 2010 - 06:08 PM
#2 OFFLINE
Posted 12 December 2010 - 10:49 PM
To be honest freckles...I haven't heard of Montessori schools so can't really comment on them. Hopefully others will be able to fill you in on them 
#3 OFFLINE
Posted 13 December 2010 - 10:00 AM
Hi freckles,
Bit stretched at the moment but I'll stick a finger in the pie and see if I can pull out any plums.
The Hagley School is a remananent of the old "Farm School" system and as far as I know generally has a vastly different aprroach to every day school life for the children that go there on a permananent basis. It is also visited by many other schools who stay or just day visit the Enviorenment Centre at various times during the year.
I think you will find Tassie schools are a bit different to Mainland education although Federal Government and their State Government puppets are doing their best to stuff it all up by wanting a "Data Fest" and forcing schools to enter into the "teach to test" situation and fixing the test data sent in, ask any teacher in the UK how its done. Of course the test results are only intended to make the pollies look good. Thats if they ever manage to get the data collection and it's entry into the database sorted. Those who have been around long enough know that todays Tasmanian literacy and numeracy statistics and education outcomes are very similar to what they were 40 years ago.
The old adage's remain.... you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink and you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear..
Excepting some of the many principles who tend to be the meat in the sandwich and worried about their funding, a lot of our local school teachers are certainly thumbing their noses at the system and what the government wants and are encouraging a return to "Play Based Learning" in the early years, something which doesn't seem to happen at home anymore for a lot of children who's social skills are also often non existant.
I know personally it is not unusual for a good teachers to be running 3, 4 and 5 different level programs in the classroom plus individual programs for any exceptional or gifted children in their class including whatever external aid they can obtain.
But that said, you will usually find the ability to do so is in the realm of the older teachers who were around 20 - 30 years ago. It seems the younger teachers excepting some of the more dedicated ones, dont appear to have the planning skills or even see the need to do so. I believe our universities modern day approach to educating our educators of the future is greatly flawed and failing. There is little "Ground Zero" practice and we all know that you can learn the theory and get top grades but actualy engaging in practical skills that same person might get a "zilch" rating and bomb out completely. That goes for any occupation. As I see it these days, younger teachers are not doing anywhere near the planning required to run a good class program, they are far more active socially than would have been expected years ago and don't seem to worry what people may think.
Public standing and respect no longer seems to be important, generally in talking with them I find a great number of them just want to be nice and be best friends with the kids. Hmmmmmm
I'll step down from the bandwagon. Ignore the rant, I could go on forever, I keep forgetting your a teacher. Anyway as I said "I'll poke the pie" to see what comes out.
Bit stretched at the moment but I'll stick a finger in the pie and see if I can pull out any plums.
The Hagley School is a remananent of the old "Farm School" system and as far as I know generally has a vastly different aprroach to every day school life for the children that go there on a permananent basis. It is also visited by many other schools who stay or just day visit the Enviorenment Centre at various times during the year.
I think you will find Tassie schools are a bit different to Mainland education although Federal Government and their State Government puppets are doing their best to stuff it all up by wanting a "Data Fest" and forcing schools to enter into the "teach to test" situation and fixing the test data sent in, ask any teacher in the UK how its done. Of course the test results are only intended to make the pollies look good. Thats if they ever manage to get the data collection and it's entry into the database sorted. Those who have been around long enough know that todays Tasmanian literacy and numeracy statistics and education outcomes are very similar to what they were 40 years ago.
The old adage's remain.... you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink and you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear..
Excepting some of the many principles who tend to be the meat in the sandwich and worried about their funding, a lot of our local school teachers are certainly thumbing their noses at the system and what the government wants and are encouraging a return to "Play Based Learning" in the early years, something which doesn't seem to happen at home anymore for a lot of children who's social skills are also often non existant.
I know personally it is not unusual for a good teachers to be running 3, 4 and 5 different level programs in the classroom plus individual programs for any exceptional or gifted children in their class including whatever external aid they can obtain.
But that said, you will usually find the ability to do so is in the realm of the older teachers who were around 20 - 30 years ago. It seems the younger teachers excepting some of the more dedicated ones, dont appear to have the planning skills or even see the need to do so. I believe our universities modern day approach to educating our educators of the future is greatly flawed and failing. There is little "Ground Zero" practice and we all know that you can learn the theory and get top grades but actualy engaging in practical skills that same person might get a "zilch" rating and bomb out completely. That goes for any occupation. As I see it these days, younger teachers are not doing anywhere near the planning required to run a good class program, they are far more active socially than would have been expected years ago and don't seem to worry what people may think.
Public standing and respect no longer seems to be important, generally in talking with them I find a great number of them just want to be nice and be best friends with the kids. Hmmmmmm
I'll step down from the bandwagon. Ignore the rant, I could go on forever, I keep forgetting your a teacher. Anyway as I said "I'll poke the pie" to see what comes out.
Some, walk in the rain, others, just get wet.
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