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MEAB Newsletter Montessori Evaluation and Accreditation Board
Issue 8 May 2012 published three times a year for accredited schools
Dear MEAB accredited schools and nurseries, Despite this being one of the busiest times of your year, please take a moment to ensure that you are aware of current MEAB initiatives: Have you confirmed your place(s) at the first ever MEAB conference (June 20, at the Institute of Education) This is a forum for debate and support specifically for managers and owners of MEAB accredited settings and will offer invaluable insight into how we run our schools, as well as how Ofsted and the new EYFS will impact on our provision. This initiative is indicative of the commitment that the Montessori St. Nicholas charity now offers genuine Montessori settings. The charity continues to help us improve standards and to strenghten our ever-growing presence as a body of schools within the wider educational forum. If you have been a Montessori teacher for some time you will remember it is not so long ago that the majority of schools worked in relative isolation and had to navigate policy changes alone. Through our association with the MSA and MEAB we now have a strong identity and are very capably represented nationally. There are now around 20 settings completing the accreditation process, amongst them are the first settings working towards re-accreditation. There are also significant numbers of schools coming forward for the first time and many more re-accreditations are well under way; for this reason we have recruited two more assessors, and we warmly welcome them to our team for their induction and mentoring. We are also pleased to announce that eight of the team have now achieved the professional status of Chartered Educational Assessors, awarded by the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors. Remember that if your setting is coming up for re-accreditation we will be in touch, giving you plenty of notice to prepare for it. For those settings that decide not to pursue re-accreditation at this point we will remove the MEAB logo and report link on the MSA website, therefore it is important that you share your plans with us. There are full details of the process on the Accreditation pages of the website, including a clear step-by-step guide, as well as an FAQ page. The revised documentation is also available to download. Remember that the focus of the accreditation process is on your Montessori practice: assessors look for spontaneous opportunities for learning within a two and a half to three hour work cycle. Observations of children, the environment and peers also feature prominently in the re-accreditations. We very much look forward to continuing our partnership with you, we will always welcome your comments on our service and if we don't see you at the forthcoming conference we wish you a very successful end to the academic year and a relaxing summer. Michele Dows-Miller Barbara Isaacs May 2012
this issue
Message from Accreditation Officers p.1 Academic Matters p.2
Important MEAB Announcements p.3 Upcoming Events p.4
Academic Matters
OTHER NEWS
MEAB School Leaders’ Conference The MEAB School Leaders’ Conference will be held on Wednesday 20
th June in Jeffery Hall, Institute of Education. This is the first ever
MEAB conference and is free for all MEAB Accredited School Heads and Managers. To book your place, email [email protected] with the names of people attending from your setting. Provisional Programme
10:00 Registration
10:30 Welcome and Update on MEAB - Barbara Isaacs, Senior Accreditation Officer
10:45 Leadership Styles - Bella Barron
11:00 Leadership in Times of Change - Ursula Nerre
11:15 Leading a Montessori Children’s Centre: The Challenges of Montessori Day care - Caroline Allen
11:30 Leading Learning Outdoors: Integrating the Montessori Curriculum - Wendy Compson
11:45 The Principled Principal: Leading a Values-based School - Sylvia Archer
12:00 Sustainability: Aiming High in an Ever Changing Market - Dawn Nasser
12:15 Working Together in the Spirit of Montessori - Sonya Kanchan-Lal
12:30 Presentation by Conference Sponsor
1:00 Lunch
2:00 MEAB Awards Ceremony
2:30 Presentation from Ofsted on the Revised EYFS Inspections
3:15 EYFS Review Update - Barbara Isaacs
4:00 Closing Remarks – Michele Dows-Miller
UPDATE ON THE REVISED EYFS and its impact on Montessori practice To book a place, contact Susan Balcombe at MCI. Cost £50 per person, with a special offer for MEAB accredited schools at £40 per person and discount of 30% if more than three places are booked by a school. This training has attracted a great deal of attention so do not delay and book promptly.
One day Workshops will be delivered by
Barbara Isaacs at MCI on the following dates
Tuesday 28 August
Wednesday 29 August Thursday 30 August
Friday 31 August Monday 3 September Tuesday 4 September
Wednesday 5 September Thursday 6 September
Starting at 10am and finishing by 4pm
Insurance Quick facts from dot2dot
As we have all suffered poor weather recently, we will be very happy that holidays are just around the corner, so don’t forget to organise a good quality travel insurance policy. There are a variety of travel insurance policies on-line or why not consider purchasing a business travel policy that would automatically cover Directors and their families for their personal trips. Although many businesses discount this option, it can be useful as they tend to have less exclusions and would even pick up trips such as conferences within the UK. From personal experience I was very relieved when I was able to recover the cost of my hotel and train fares when I unexpectedly needed to cancel a trip. The only other area worth mentioning is that most travel insurers require you to notify them if you have sought any medical treatment prior to your trip. However minor, it is best to just give them a ring – better safe than sorry. Jackie Hyde, Insurance Advisor, http://www.dot2dot.org.uk/
Important MEAB Announcements OTHER NEWS
Montessori Parenting Book The new parenting book ‘Learning Together: What Montessori can offer your family’ is an invaluable guide for parents of children from birth upwards and is packed with advice on bringing out the best in children. You can order in bulk (10+ for £3.99 per copy and for orders 20+ it’s £3.50 per copy plus p&p). For orders of 30 plus, please email [email protected] FREE Montessori Parenting classes Montessori St Nicholas, the UK’s Montessori charity, is delighted to announce that it has won a DfE tender to provide free 0-5 parenting classes in the London Borough of Camden from June 2012. The classes form part of a wider pilot scheme, launched by the DfE in November 2011 to trial and evaluate 10-15 FREE parenting programmes across three local authorities: Camden, Middlesbrough and High Peak Derbyshire over the next two years. For more information visit http://www.canparent.org.uk/ Learn from Home Get all your staff Montessori qualified by training from the comfort of their own homes. Contact Vicky McKillop, an MCI trained teacher via email [email protected] to discuss your training needs. Visit the microsite at http://distancelearning.montessori.org.uk/ Montessori Perspective Watch Barbara Isaacs on Sky News talk commenting on David Cameron’s ideas for discipline, and talking about Montessori values and respect in the home; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEqyel7OI9c
USEFUL LINKS
Training Check out the MCI summer workshops: Apparatus 1 - Jul 30 to Aug 11 Infant Toddler – Jul 30 to Aug 3 Apparatus 2 – Aug 13 to 17 Montessori Refresher – Aug 13 to 25 Introduction to Montessori – Aug 20 to 24 Email [email protected] to book a place or to find out more details visit http://www.montessori.org.uk/mci_training Foundation Years Forum Post your comments, views and questions at http://foundationyears.org.uk/forum/
All Schools undertaking their accreditation second visit by the end of May will have the opportunity to receive their plaque at the MEAB Conference on the 20
th June. Please confirm your attendance by
emailing [email protected] or call 020 7828 7740 For schools with re-accreditations due If we don’t receive your S1 by the beginning of June we will have to remove your accreditation report and the MEAB logo from the website. If there are any specific reasons why you are delaying your re-accreditation please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate your request. In this case, we will place an appropriate note on the website “considering re-accreditation”. For schools due for re-accreditation in the autumn term To ensure continuity we would urge you to prepare your S1 during the summer term and return it to us as soon as possible so that we can plan the re-accreditation for late September to early October. Please note that the accreditation now costs £150 for two visits. Should you wish to be visited in June of this year, we will need to receive your S1 by end of May.
MEAB Assessor Training - April 2012
On the 30th of April the entire MEAB assessor team met up at the
Montessori St. Nicholas's new offices in Lower Grosvenor Place, filling the conference room to capacity. The team welcomed the two newly appointed assessors who have joined them to assist with the increased workload that the scheme has generated, now that growing numbers of schools are coming forward for accreditation. The focus of the day was to fine-tune the reporting process and to feed back on the two visit structure that is now fully established and working well for settings in supporting the development of their practice.
Upcoming Events
19 May R9 – Outdoor Classroom with
Wendy Compson
14 June R10 – Happiness and Well-being
with Susie pearl
16 June R3 – EYFS: The New Document
20 June MEAB School Leaders’ Conference
23 June R11 – Free flow with Michelle Wisbey
7 July R4 – Promoting Positive Behaviour with Berhane Dory
4 – 5 September Primary – Great Lessons and Primary approach to the exercise of silence with Carolina Abel
7 September R3- Forest School Leader
Training (7, 8, 9, 22, 23 Sept)
29 September R4 – Montessori Outdoors with
Dawn Nasser
13 October R4 – Yoga by June
Browse http://www.montessori.org.uk/msa/msa/events_msa for the full list
of events. Get contact details of your regional chairs and read more
information about Regional Events at
http://www.montessori.org.uk/msa/msa/msa_regions
Preferred partners
For more information on our preferred partners, click on the logos:
MEAB
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USEFUL LINKS
Staff Recruitment We are looking for an experienced Montessorian to fill in a full time post. The MCI external department requires a new distance learning tutor with solid academic background with good IT and administrative skills. Apply by email with your CV to [email protected] For other Montessori job vacancies visit http://www.montessori.org.uk/magazine-and-jobs/jobs To place a job vacancy online, in the Montessori International or on MCI student notice boards email [email protected] Montessori Books & magazine subscription Visit http://shop.montessori.org.uk/ Shopping deals, offers and discounts http://www.montessori.org.uk/magazine-and-jobs/market_place2