Description of organisation

Strefa Montessori Foundation was founded as a result of many years of passion connected with education of children and young people, as an effect of disagreement with the commonly prevailing model of teaching. Its goal is to run educational, care and upbringing facilities, specialist advisory centres as well as to help parents who care about the education and create the conditions for their full and integral development. The Foundation pursues its goals independently or in cooperation with other entities, among others, through organizing and running educational, caring institutions. It also equipes the institutions with modern equipment and didactic as well as therapeutic means, which will ensure the standard of education, therapy and care. Organizes summer camps, half-terms activities, camps, taking care of the development and improvement of the Montessori method, by creating, promoting and selling tools to support the work of teachers, educators and the work of children learning based on the Montessori method, cooperating with institutions and individuals in Poland and abroad.
The Foundation has under its custody the Educational Studio for homeschooled children and adults, which is located in a rural area in Suszec in a place with a forest, river, where homeschooled children can experience freedom and contact with nature. We organize thematic workshops open to other children, and in the afternoons conduct workshops for adults. The Foundation cooperates with a Montessorian preschool and an alternative primary school which follows an individual work program. Both the preschool, the primary school, and the studio are places that focus on individualized and holistic development of children. The basis of our education is trust, empathy, building good relationships and mutual respect. Our goal is to educate and raise wise and good people; we teach independence, efficiency, and responsibility; we prepare children to function in a dynamic, changing, and globalized world, and we constantly feed our students' cognitive curiosity. We are open to dialogue, discussion, and any suggestions. We work in the spirit of NVC (Non-Violent Communication), Positive Discipline, in the culture of educational circles, we conduct student tutoring.
We teach through experience, project-based, outdoor (in preschool we have outdoor Fridays - we educate in the area of Pszczyna park). We experience the world around us in nature, in the city space, in public facilities. In the kindergarten, children can use kitchen corners in both rooms, where they prepare meals, wash dishes, and tidy up. We use the space of the city, park for educational walks, field games, implementation of interdisciplinary and social projects. We look for different effective teaching strategies with the student and teach conscious thinking process. We use a diverse, creative, broad, modern suite of working methods: Critical Thinking, Design Thinking, eduScrum, Montessori pedagogy. We teach in blocks, use formative assessment based on feedback.
Children from grade 1 are taught English and Spanish in an extended and natural way, we do not rely on textbooks but on real communication, we also use native speaker classes from grade 4. The heart of the school is the spacious kitchen where we eat together, cook in many subjects e.g. learning Spanish vocabulary, doing calculus, learning to organize and take responsibility for common space, spending time during breaks, being with each other. Students have the opportunity to prepare a meal, drink, bake cupcakes or cake for themselves.
The children have a laboratory room which we would like to equip over time where they do experiments in the sciences - physics, chemistry, geography, biology, astronomy.
The classroom for students in grades 1-3 is arranged so that students can work individually at their own pace on the aids of their choice, following an individual plan for weekly goals. Students may work at a table, on the floor, or on cushions depending on individual aptitude.
We also have a room to work with a school psychologist. We care for harmonious and intellectual development by combining humanistic, scientific and artistic subjects.
We have a piano, guitar, and sets of small instruments so that children can enjoy live sounds. The children also have programming classes. P.E. lessons are held in the nearby sports hall and in the park, and include badminton classes. A great value is the morning ritual of 20 minutes of reading every day. We have our own library. We are implementing the community project Education through Reading. Grades 4-7 work together on interdisciplinary social, educational, scientific and global projects.