At FMS, in addition to meeting (often exceeding) students’ academic, social and physical learning needs, our programs intentionally prepare children for the world beyond the classroom, beyond school. We prepare children for life, and for a life of peace! In Montessori, peace is more than a concept, it is a living practice that starts within the child and expands outward, creating a world grounded in understanding and empathy.
You can observe Preparation for Life everyday in Montessori classrooms for all ages.
Our toddler and preschool students engage in activities that focus on caring for self, caring for others and caring for their environment. These help our youngest students develop practical life skills, as well as empathy, care and consideration. This is beyond what is offered at most early learning centres and reinforces our Education for Peace – the bedrock of Montessori philosophy.
As students progress through Montessori education, they are offered greater and more complex ways to experience, develop and apply practical life skills and peace education outside the classroom.
Going Out is another hallmark of Montessori Primary education and is key to students’ Preparation for Life.
Going Out provides primary students with real life settings and opportunities to develop the following skills:
- Social connection, teamwork and collaboration
- Research, resourcing, decision making
- Delegation and distribution of tasks
- Organisation, thinking and planning
- Responsibility, problem solving and confidence
Going Out gives our primary students a pathway to live the legacy of a peace education through participation in our local and greater community.
This term at FMS, our Primary students have had multiple opportunities to learn and implement skills across a variety of community-based Going Out activities.
Here is an overview of what they have been up to…
La Boheme report, by Aliya and Reuel
On Thursday 21st of August, we went to see La Boheme Opera at the Sydney Opera House.
We decided to plan this Going Out because one of our friends, Felix, is performing in the production. To organise this, we had to research different buses, trains and light rail options to get to and from the Opera House.
We had to use a trip planning website to figure out the cost and all of our travel options.
We had to print out the entire plan of the journey including photos of each transport change and then have a meeting with Erica to confirm our plans to make sure that we knew where we were going.
Although Adelaide came on the Going Out with us, we were in charge of the navigation and we had to have back up plans in case something went wrong.
We also had to write a risk assessment.
The opera performance was really amazing and exciting. Our favourite part was when we could see Felix on stage. Overall, we had a blast and we would recommend going to see La Boheme.
Maritime Museum Excursion report, by Felix, River and Henry
On Thursday the 28th of August we went on an excursion to the Maritime Museum to see the replica of the Endeavour and some indigenous maps and artefacts. We have been studying The Age of Exploration especially Captain Cook’s journey to Australia.
I liked having a close look at the living conditions on the ship and I was surprised at how small it was – Felix.
My highlight was exploring the ship and climbing up and down the ladders – Henry.
My highlight was seeing Captain Cook’s cabin and seeing all the maps and navigation instruments. I also liked seeing a real traverse board which is where you have 8 circles inside of each and every half hour you put the direction and speed of your ship on it and this helped the explorers’ navigate – River.
One Meal Makes a Difference – written by 9-12 students
Last week, Terraulong went on a Going Out to One Meal in Brookvale.
One Meal is a local food charity that collects donations from local supermarkets and cooks meals for people experiencing food insecurity in Sydney.
They have a huge kitchen and walk in fridge and freezer to store the ingredients and meals. They also create breakfast packs for people in need.
We found out they make 45,000 meals or meal equivalents a month. That’s 540,000 meals in a year or a million meals every two years.
Our visit was really informative and they told us that sometimes they have to be creative with the recipes they cook as they cook from only donated ingredients. Sophie who volunteers at One Meal and gave us our tour, told us that they cook the meals for people going through a hard time and said that an immediate way to give back to your community is to nourish people from the inside out.
We are going to cook some meals here in our classroom to share with One Meal. Some of the meals we are planning could be meatballs, spaghetti bolognese and soups. We might also do some baking.
We are looking forward to starting cooking meals for One Meal and hope our contribution will give lots of people full bellies!
