Erasmus Grant - The Montessori Place

NEWS:

On 18. – 20. September 2015 The first international meeting of the Montessori Adolescent Programme Inspiration (MAPI) project took place in Prague at the Montessori školy Andílek. This project is supported by Erasmus+, the EU programme for education, youth and sport,

http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/index_cs.htm

The 6 partnering European organisations – the Association Montessori International (AMI), the Maria Montessori Institute, The Montessori Place (both UK), Montessoriskolan Lära för Livet (Sweden) and Montessori-Initiative Wieden (Austria) are working on 3 outputs. The first is an inventory of Montessori adolescent programmes in Europe, secondly, the creation of a methodology for the starting up of Montessori adolescent educational programmes and, thirdly, the creation of an internet platform to share the first two ouputs. The results of the methodological work will be freely available on the website, not only for the Montessori community but also for specialists working with youth regardless of their background.

The project will run for 2 years and its outputs will be presented on the International Montessori Congress 2017 in Prague.

1. PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Project Objective: To allow educators of adolescents from partner organizations to share knowledge, know-how and experience in the area of the project – specifics and methodology in Montessori education of young people (age 13 – 18) and methods of non-formal education of youth. Through sharing we want to design, develop and start Montessori adolescent programmes in EU.

Project Outputs:

INVENTORY (DATABASE) OF EXISTING MONTESSORI EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES FOR YOUTH in Europe that will serve as a source of inspiration to anyone interested.
METHODOLOGY HOW TO DEVELOP AND START ADOLESCENT EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES – key pillars and processes of establishing adolescent programme based on Montessori principles.
IT PLATFORM FOR SHARING KNOWLEDGE, KNOW-HOW AND EXPERIENCE in the area of Montessori adolescent education.

Project Activities:

Work on intellectual project outputs

Creation of the Inventory of the existing Montessori Educational Programmes for Youth
Creation of the Methodology How to develop and start Adolescent Educational Programmes
Creation of the interactive IT platform

Transnational meetings:

6 transnational meetings, 1 in each partner organization – 2 – 3 people from each partner organisation on the premises of the partner organization

Dissemination Events

Roundtable for Adolescent Educators at AMI AGM, Amsterdam 2017 (dissemination for Montessori public)
Event and presentation at the International Montessori Congress, Prague 2017 (dissemination for general public)

Learning/Teaching/Training Activity

Adolescent Orientation Programme (3 youth workers/adolescent teachers from each partner organization)

We all share the vision that to advance education of children in EU, and especially children from socially weakened areas or families, we need to offer the children in all stages of their life the best possible care and education. Education of adolescents is a very difficult task because it addresses the children in a complicated phase of their development.

The main purpose of this project is to allow educators of adolescents from partnering organizations to share knowledge, know how and experience in the area of the project – specifics and methodology in Montessori education of young people (age 13 – 18) and methods of informal education of youth. Through sharing we want to design, develop and start Montessori adolescent programmes in EU.

Together we will create a comprehensive international methodology and complex set of activities that can be used within the Montessori educational system for work with youth, based on the needs of young people in each country. We will also create inventory of existing Montessori youth programmes in Europe and last but not least, we will create Internet platform through which the sharing of knowledge, knowhow and experience will be supported and continued after the project is over. We believe that the non-formal out of school activities established on the Montessori education system principles as well as the prepared environment can have an important impact on the target group of young people aged 13 – 18 that is usually difficult to address and capture. All participants of our project have long time experience with leading various kinds of informal activities for various target groups included adolescents. The Montessori community feels the urgent need to address this target group and want to improve its methods and tools to do that.

Objectives of the project:

a) to share and exchange of know how, experience, case studies and ideas in Montessori non-formal adolescent education across the AMI membership network
b) to identify the needs of individual countries/partnering organizations leading to enhanced networking and identify opportunities for cooperation
c) to establish international networking tool based on knowledge of project partners – work in a group to identify steps which need to be taken toward building such a tool
d) to support mobility among partners
e) to train specialists to work with adolescent children

Primary target group: specialists working with adolescent children and educators of adolescents from the partnering organizations

Secondary target group: young people aged 13 – 18 both form Montessori and non-Montessori background

Tertiary target group: specialists, educators and organizations with the field of interest in adolescent non-formal education in the AMI worldwide network as well teachers, lecturers, activity facilitators, parents and other people working in the area of interest.

2. DATES AND LOCATIONS

Project implementation start date: 1 September 2015

Project implementation end date: 31 August 2017

Transnational project meetings:

Montessori schools Andílek / MIP	Prague, Czech Republic	18 – 20 September 2015
Montessori-Initiative Wieden	Vienna, Austria	March 2016
Montessoriskolan Lära för Livet	Varberg, Sweden	July 2016
The Montessori Place / Maria Montessori Institute	Brighton /London, UK	December 2016
AMI	Amsterdam, Netherlands	April 2017
Montessori schools Andílek / MIP	Prague, Czech Republic	July 2017