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  • How to Select the Best Montessori School for Your Child: Alignment of Core Values Between School and Staff

    • December 7, 2016
    • Posted By : Montessori School of Silicon Valley Staff
    • 0 Comment

    How to Select the Best Montessori School for Your Child

    With four campus locations, every day we have visitors at the Montessori School of Silicon Valley.

    Whether they are prospective families, teachers/administrators from Montessori schools observing our classrooms or grandma & grandpa picking up, our visitors frequently comment on a handful of things that stand out about our sites.

    Most frequently visitors notice the meticulously maintained environment that our Montessori Lead Guides have crafted specifically to put the needs of the children first (always!) as well as to be a place where children want to be.

    Everything within the environment – the book shelves, counter tops, tables, chairs, even the bathroom facilities – is set at the child’s level in a clean, organized manner that is warm, beautiful and inviting.

    During work periods the classrooms are alive with the hum of happy children busy working on lessons with Montessori materials.

    It is the type of environment that can only be created by a staff that are not only happy themselves, but people who are happy to be at the school working with children.

    A little over five years ago, we set out on a mission to achieve full implementation of Montessori in all our classrooms.  To realize our mission, we recognized that we had to be very careful to hire the right teachers to lead our classrooms.  This led to our focusing our search on hiring Lead Guides who truly:

    • love working with children
    • love and embrace the Montessori philosophy

    Over these past five years we feel that we have worked hard to hire teaching staff at all of our locations that – in addition to having formal credentials – exhibit their passion for working with children and an equal passion for the Montessori philosophy.

    Alignment of Core Values Between School and Staff

    Before we recently published our core values, we thought it would be an interesting opportunity to reach out to our entire staff and see how well they aligned with our core values by asking them two questions:

    • What are your personal values?
    • What makes MSOSV a unique place to work?

    We asked the staff to write their answers with one word or very short phrases on a sticky note posted to a board in each of our staff break rooms.  We then pulled together their responses into this word cloud:

    The Core Values of our Staff

    It was no surprise to me that the personal values our staff hold in their own lives align with how they feel about working at MSOSV.  In turn, MSOSV reflects the personal values of the staff.

    For our Lead Guides, Management and many of our assistant staff, MSOSV is more than a career.  Working with children is what we have dedicated our lives and our professions to.

    It is our life’s work.

    The evidence of that commitment and passion is apparent to everyone who visits any of our campus locations.

    Do we align with you and your families core values?  Drop by and let us know.

    That’s all for this week.  Next week I will write a bit about how the families in our school community also align with our core values.

    Remember, at The Montessori School of Silicon Valley it’s “Children First, Always”.

    -Colleen