What Is The Montessori Approach To Assessment And Reporting
Montessori education is specifically non-competitive, and eschews rewards and punishment in favour of encouraging the development in children of intrinsic motivation for learning. Activities are open-ended, encouraging exploration and creative thinking, and as such do not lend themselves to grading.
Children work in three year age cohorts, in specially prepared environments which contain materials specifically designed to foster the achievement of appropriate developmental milestones, and the sequential mastery of skills and concepts across the range of disciplines. The materials provide feedback to the child and teacher as to where the child is at any time on these developmental milestones and in mastery of skills and concepts. There is a strong emphasis on individual choice and individualised teaching, based on the understanding that children do not achieve those developmental goals, nor master those skills and concepts, in lockstep, but rather need to work at their own pace, benefiting from the opportunities the three year age range provides to learn from and to teach each other, to be inspired by others, and to value helping others.
Primary children take ownership of their own progress through their daily work journal, weekly individual conferences with their teacher, by requesting specific lessons as the need arises, and by maintaining portfolios of work completed. These materials, and detailed daily observations of each child by the teacher, form the basis of reporting to parents.
Such reporting is individualised, highly detailed, and focused on the strengths of the child as well as areas where further development is needed. Grading and comparative reporting, which ranks a student’s achievement against the performance of other members of the class, is not compatible with Montessori philosophy and practice.
Not only is comparative reporting often misleading for parents, and a cause of unwarranted anxiety, it is discouraging for students who score “poorly”, detrimental to both their self-esteem and their willingness to persist, as well as potentially negative for those who do “well’ by encouraging the valuing of high scores over the inherent satisfaction of learning.
In Montessori multi-aged classrooms, all students are aware of each others’ abilities and are comfortable with working at their own pace. The achievements of others are not seen as threatening, but rather as something to which to aspire. Children are able to see that it is normal for individuals to achieve mastery in certain areas at different times and in different ways. As a result, they are encouraged rather than discouraged, and ready to continue to tackle, rather than to avoid, learning challenges.
Moreover, comparative reporting is not achievable in practical terms in Montessori schools, given the three year age cohorts with which we work, and our often small class and school sizes. Comparing children for a particular year within that three year age range will, in most cases, be statistically insignificant as the numbers in each “year” are small (often less than 10) and children within each year are not all learning the same concepts at the same time.
The Director evaluates each student’s work in the following ways:
- Montessori Observing the child’s contributions during a group or individual lesson
- Montessori Observing whether the child goes on to utilise the concept presented
- Montessori Observing the child using Montessori materials to ascertain if she has understood a presentation
- Montessori The Director and child discuss the child’s work
Records are kept of all concepts presented to each student, all material practiced, and all concepts understood by the child. The staff use the information gathered through this process of evaluation in several ways:
- Montessori To provide information on the child’s progress
- Montessori To enable appropriate planning for each child’s needs
Montessori To assess the child’s interests, skills and strengths as a guide for other teachers when the time comes for the child to move on to another class or school.