Montisorri Primary & traveling time to school

[Steeringwheel]

Hello

Does anyone have experience of Montisorri education at Primary School Level? Currently exploring moving our child from mainstream to a Montisorri provision.

Also, how far do you travel to take your child to school? Is a 30-40 minute car journey either way too much to expect for a 7 year old?

Thanks

but why would you do this? When it comes to schools, unless there is a specific reason why a certain school is necessary, why choose such a commute? Absolute hell IMO.

Because mainstream school is not working out for my child and they are not happy. We've raised issues with the school numerous times, complained etc but not convinced things will improve.

What’s the reason mainstream isn’t working out and what are the pros of Montessori?

There would have to be a lots of definite pros for me to consider a 40 minute each way journey. Particularly since that could easily increase with traffic issues or bad weather.

I wouldn’t consider that commute to a school. Completely unfair on the child.

When you say "mainstream" school, do you actually mean one specific school? Is there no closer other school to move them too?

7 is getting to the age where you might reasonably expect your child to start playing out with school friends and making their own way to and from school. You'd be denying him either possibility.
is 30-40 minutes in rush hour? What about times when there is an evening event at school? Or if he forgets something. That's a lot of time sat in a car that could more usefully be spent doing something else.

As a child I always was ahead of the class till I went to a Montessori. I didn't make any progress for a year, was bored out of my skull and then my parents thankfully let me change schools again. It might be a good learning method for some children but not for everyone. Please keep an open mind about mainstream schools, they also differ from each other.

check the ethos of the school. montessori comes in different 'strength' most are 'mainstream with a touch of montessori' only very few are 'pure' montessori.

tbh the commute seems fine, normal for london...

40 mins each wAy means the best part of 3 hours a day in a car for you. That’s both boring and expensive...

40 minutes isn't that long a time to get to school.

I've done longer school runs.

Most kids where I live have about an hour trip to school!

I'm a teacher at a private primary school 30 minutes away. My 3 year old DD has been commuting with me for well over a year (as she goes to the Montessori pre-prep there) and we have a great time in the car- usually singing along to musicals or chatting about anything and everything. It helps that a lot of our journey is along a scenic route, and we rarely have bad traffic, but even so neither of us see it as a hardship.

I went to a Montessori school up to year 2 and loved it. I notice things even now about how I learn that clearly are due to having that sort of education. There are none near us sadly but I’d fall over myself for my dc to go to a Montessori school.

That said, the distance would depend on your work and routine. We travel 10 minutes. I could see doing 30 minutes by car, but only if I was going that way anyway. If you have to be at work 40 minutes in the other direction, it’s just not realistic. It would make for a long and tiring day when they are little, but depends on what else you have going on in terms of after school activities, work commitments, etc.