The perfect conclusion to a Montessori education
An International Baccalaureate (IB) education is the perfect conclusion to a Montessori education as it has so many parallels:
- Both are child-centred (rather than teacher-centred)
- Both are based upon Method rather than Content
- Both promote individual enquiry
- Both promote social and community behaviour
- Both promote children’s education for peace
- Both believe in self-discipline and integral sense of purpose
- Both have diversity leading to global perspectives
- Both promote the value of solid, hard and uninterrupted work
A First in Education
We are proud to be the first Montessori school in Bulgaria preparing to offer the IB. We recognised that the IB is the perfect conclusion to a Montessori education, as well as a great prelude and foundation to tertiary study and the world beyond. Otkrivatel has the status of a candidate school for the PYP and MYP program of the International Baccalaureate (IB). Otkrivatel Montessori School is pursuing authorization as an IB World School. These are schools that share a common philosophy—a commitment to high quality, challenging, international education that Otkrivatel Montessori School believes is important for our students.
International Baccalaureate (IB)
Today, there are more than 5,000 IB schools in more than 140 countries. Moreover, the IBDP is recognised by universities and employers the world over.
Lauded for nurturing principled, knowledgeable, and open-minded young adults, the IB equips and encourages students to become active, responsible global citizens. As such, the IBO has developed a set of attributes that constitute the ideal learner profile, which includes being:
- Inquisitive
- Knowledgeable
- Thoughtful
- Communicators
- Principled
- Open-minded
- Caring
- Courageous
- Balanced
- Reflective
Our teachers incorporate these attributes in each lesson and foster them in each of our students.
Programmes
Primary Years Programme (PYP)
The Primary Years Programme has widely impacted not only students aged 3–12 and their school communities worldwide but also the course of international education. As a transdisciplinary, inquiry-based and student-centred education with responsible action at its core, the PYP has remained trusted, timeless and transformational.
The PYP curriculum framework begins with the premise that PYP students are agents of their own learning and partners in the learning process. They have innate potential to inquire, question, wonder and theorize about themselves, others, and the world around them. When learning communities recognize children’s emergent identities and competencies, they create an educational context that values children both for who they are in the present and who they will become in the future.
The central principle is the agency that is threaded throughout the three pillars of the curriculum: the learner, learning and teaching and the learning community. Augmenting the focus of the “written, taught, and assessed” curriculum with the human elements-—the learner and the learning community—underlines that everyone connected to the school community has voice, choice and ownership to impact learning and teaching. These holistic components complement and reinforce each other to form a coherent whole.
The PYP curriculum framework centres on transdisciplinary learning as the curriculum organizer for students to experience learning between, across and beyond traditional subject boundaries. It is an indepth guide to authentic inquiry-based learning and teaching that is engaging, significant, challenging and relevant.
Middle Years Programme (MYP)
From its beginning, the MYP was guided by three principles that have had special currency for learners aged 11–16, inspired by the IB mission: holistic learning, intercultural awareness and communication.
The MYP has been designed as a coherent and comprehensive curriculum framework that provides academic challenge and develops the life skills of students from the ages of 11 to 16. These years are a critical period in the development of young people. Success in school is closely related to personal, social and emotional well-being. At a time when students are establishing their identity and building their selfesteem, the MYP can motivate students and help them to achieve success in school and in life beyond the classroom. The programme allows students to build on their personal strengths and to embrace challenges in subjects in which they might not excel. In line with Montessori approach, the MYP offers students opportunities to develop their potential, to explore their own learning preferences, to take appropriate risks, and to reflect on, and develop, a strong sense of personal identity.
The flow of adolescence is found in the third plane of development.
At this stage, the fire is still burning, but the transformation is becoming more peaceful.
Montessori based her educational philosophy on the idea that children develop through a series of four planes. At this age (15-18), children are in the third plane of development, which is a period when they have a huge capacity for creative expression, while their style of learning becomes more practical and experiential. Adolescents at this age see themselves more as an adult, looking outward into the world, and the universe.
Diploma Programme (DP)
The intent of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) is to nurture internationally minded young adults who help create a better world.
Established in 1968 by the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), the IBDP is an academically challenging and internationally focused program designed to prepare students for the worlds of further education and professional life.
A perfectly balanced and academically rigorous curriculum.
With a written curriculum or framework and age-appropriate student assessments, the IB Programme comprises three core elements and six subject groups.
IB core elements:
- Theory of knowledge. Students reflect on the nature of knowledge and how we know what we claim to know.
- Extended essays. Independent, self-directed research, culminating in a 4,000-word paper.
- Creativity, activity, and service (CAS). Students complete a project related to these three concepts.
IB subject groups:
Through inquiry-based learning, students learn six subject groups, which include: Studies in Language and Literature, Language Acquisition, Individuals and Societies, Sciences, Mathematics, and Arts.
The aim of the IB is to nurture internationally minded young adults who help create a better world, which is in line with Dr Maria Montessori’s thinking:
Education should not limit itself to seeking new methods for a mostly arid transmission of knowledge: its aim must be to give the necessary aid to human development.
Dr. Maria Montessori
