Switching to Montessori nursery or not?

[antsrule]

My 2.4yo DD is very happy and settled at her current nursery. She's been going since she was 19months. We have now been offered a place at a Montessori nursery which we wanted to put her in from the beginning but there was no availability then.

My question is: is it worth switching? Is a Montessori nursery as good as it sounds?

We are mostly happy with the current one. I say mostly because we started noticing that the staff are not very genuine, although it may be too high expectation, and that all the 'new things' she says or does we know of already, so is she actually developing?
We like that current nursery is small and very low turnover of staff, but their outside area is rather small, and even smaller now due to covid because they separated the rooms/outdoor area.
Any advice would be great! Thank you!

I think it’s down to the specific nursery rather than the Montessori “brand” tbh. There’s one near me. I worked in the adjacent building for a while and wouldn’t send my kid there if that was the only option going - disinterested staff, kids not comforted, unpleasant owner/manager. It has a bit of a reputation locally. Visit if you can, ask around locally, walk past at opportune moments. And avoid if it’s in SE14 .

Warning, the word Montessori means nothing. I was accidentally involved in a so called Montessori nursery (I was the landlord) and they were complete charlatans! (And owe us £8500!) the only Montessori aspect was the name. We contacted the Montessori organisation in the U.K. to be told anyone can use it without accreditation

Your current nursery sounds great! She must be developing if she's doing new things, you're just seeing them first.

So taking that out, the only benefit of the other nursery is a bigger garden, and potentially a different philosophy although you don't mention that you necessarily see that as 'better'.

A happy settled child is the most important thing by far, there's no way I'd risk changing that.

I'd keep her where she is if she is happy. As for them noticing her 'new' things keep in mind they will behave differently in different settings. What she does confidently at home with attentive one to one parents will be different to what she does in a busy environment. That they are seeing this at the setting too probably means she is confident there.

Montessori is great, but if you're happy with the current nursery and she is settled, I wouldn't move just to move.

We picked ours because we liked it, then accidentally discovered months later that it was a Montessori-style one.
As other posters said, it's better to chose based on your requirements for a good nursery vs the style only.
For instance, the first nursery we visited was the most expensive of the area, with great reputation, big name, everyone was recommending it...We hated it at first sight. There was literally no one member of the staff smiling, children were playing alone, remains of messy plays scattered everywhere and they had a tiny garden with astroturf. We felt so depressed thinking that was the BEST option available.
After few other visits we went into the one that we then chose: small setting, everyone very sweet, staff was busy cuddling babies or playing with them, all toys were made of natural material/wood and they had an amazing big natural garden.
A couple of years later and we are still so happy there (mostly for the staff who indeed care about the children, but I also still like the approach to learning and the facilities).