If you look at any natural social grouping in life you will find mixed ages, genders, cultures – the more mixed the richer the environment.

By grouping the children in a three-year age brackets (18m – 3 years, 3-6 years, 6-9 years, 9-12 years etc.), all sense of competition amongst the children is removed as each child works at his or her own pace. Slow learners are never left behind and so are not left feeling isolated from the rest of the class.

The children learn to communicate and socialize with other children of all ages at all levels. The younger child easily learns from the older more capable child in the environment, whilst the older child in so doing becomes more responsible and develops tolerance and nurturing for the younger child. There are many things, which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with ease!

The principle of Mixed Age Groups is central to the Montessori pedagogy and runs throughout all environments.

Whilst Dr. Maria Montessori advocated giving the children certain measures of freedom within which to function – it is very clear that this freedom is ‘within limits’. Every school has a set of rules and regulations that are at one with the norm of society and these rules may not be broken without consequence.

Misdemeanors are treated with love and understanding, usually with re-directing the activity or asking the child to work closely with the directress so that subsequent behavior can be observed. This usually does the trick – but if not, the “time-out” method may be used. The child is never labeled as ‘naughty’ and still remains feeling loved and part of the environment. The amount of time a child usually sits “out” is 1 minute for every year of age – i.e. a 4 year old will sit for four minutes or less before being approached by the teacher.

Children younger than 3 years old are rarely fully potty trained so No, your child does not need to be reliabily potty trained to be in the Toddler’s group. Usually, once your 2 year old sees friends using the little toilets in the Toddler’s environment they will develop a curiosity to do the same and a whole regimen will then follow and together with you your toddler will be wearing undies in no time.

One of the signs of readiness to move to the preschool 3-6 environment is that ‘accidents’ rarely happen and that your child will be able to go to the toilet unaided and without prompting.

Once the curiosity is there that time will naturally develop – all we have to do is to allow it to unfold without fuss.