The Junior School Curriculum

Our Children’s House is a beautiful, calm and inviting environment. Through the Montessori Work Cycle, the children engage in a diverse range of activities catered to support their whole development. These include:

• Practical Life & Sensorial Activities: real-life activities to help the child develop focus, order, fine motor skills, confidence and self-esteem in the care of themselves and care of their environment
• Language Arts: oral language activities to enrich vocabulary, sound games, and classification of words; the development of fine motor skills through supporting the natural development of writing before reading; creative writing; a sequential phonetic reading program; an introduction to the parts of speech
• Mathematics: hands-on materials to learn about quantities and symbols, explore numbers 1 – 10 and incrementally numbers to 100, the decimal system and solving addition and subtraction equations
• Culture and Science: children explore the world directly within the small environment of the Children’s House and in the wider world through exploring physical and cultural geography including the use of Montessori Globes, Land and Water Forms, Puzzles Maps, and Flags of the World; building a sense of history through personal timelines and family trees; explores living and non-living things through the classification of plants and animals (Zoology and Botany )

The Lower Elementary at Deenway is a busy environment which carries a special ‘hum’ of activity, with children engaging in an increasing range of social and collective activities, the highlight of which is the children’s hosting of the annual ‘Spring Tea’ for their families. The children also continue to engage in the full range of the Elementary Montessori curriculum through their Work Cycle, including:

• Language Arts: progressing through grammar study, working with the Grammar Symbols and Grammar Boxes; developing skills of sentence analysis; continuing to master the skills of reading, the mechanics of writing; exploring word study
• Mathematics: learning basic math facts and the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division through the use of hands-on Montessori material; working with  larger numbers and place value; learning how to perform operations involving fractions and beginning to work with geometry; moving from concrete to more complex and abstract arithmetic concepts
• Culture: children explore the world directly within the small environment of the Children’s House and in the wider world through exploring physical and cultural geography including the use of Montessori Globes, Land and Water Forms, Puzzles Maps, and Flags of the World; building a sense of history through personal timelines and family trees; Zoology – explores living and non-living things, Botany –the role and purpose of plants in the world.
• Science: exploring the classification of plants, their parts and their uses (Botany); exploring the structure of an atom and investigating the solar system (Matter and Astronomy); exploring the workings of the human body and its systems and the role of nutrition and physical education in maintaining health (Health Sciences)

In the Upper Elementary, pupils’ study and work continues to follow the outline of the Montessori curriculum for the Elementary Years and pupils engage in a daily Work Cycle through self-access of materials as they have been accustomed to doing through the junior school. However, at this stage, our curriculum is additionally complimented by lessons stemming from classical education and pupils also access whole-class lesson presentations and demonstrations as well as participating in small-group discussions. Key features of the Upper Elementary are pupils’ individual research projects, through which they develop their initial interests over a series of weeks each term, and class-led events involving hosting and serving the wider school community. Their other work includes:

• Language Arts: pupils continue to engage with word study and master their spellings along with the mechanics of writing; they progress through grammar study and practice skills of sentence analysis. They master the skills of reading comprehension and writing composition, practising creative writing and non-fiction writing such as reflective pieces, informative essays, reports and letters. 
• Literature Study: pupils participate in the Junior Great Books programme, a collection short stories through which students practice dialogue and critical thinking. The literature sessions are held according to the Shared Inquiry method, which is designed to teach students how read actively, understand meanings and simple ideas, pose useful questions, listen and respond to others in discussion, build upon complex ideas through discussion and produce cross-curricular written work using the texts studied. 
• Humanities - History/Geography: Pupils study world history from the earliest times through short stories with key characters, events, maps and illustrations. Through these stories, they practice the skills of narration and composition, map study, and embark on a range of artistic and creative projects. 
• Mathematics: Pupils now engage with the study of Maths abstractly. They build on their knowledge of and intensively practice adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions. They learn how to find percentages, work with negative numbers, find Least Common Multiples and Greatest Common Factors. They then progress to the study of Pre-algebra, which includes Order of Operations, Solving for x, Ratios, Proportions, Combining Like Terms, Exponents, Square Root and Linear Equations. 
• Science: Pupils study Biology (covering the study of plants and vegetation and the range of human body systems) and Physics (covering energy, light, sound, electricity, forces and motion). Each unit involves a practical activity or experiment alongside the learning of key terminology and the completion of written assignments through responses to discussion  questions as well as unit tests.
• Health Sciences: Pupils focus not just on physical health but also on wellness, including hygiene, media awareness, and healthy relationships. They engage in discussions regarding the body, food and food handling, nutrition, individual and community development, and physical education and sport.

For pupils who wish to continue their journey at Deenway and Unicity College at this stage, the final year of Upper Elementary acts as a transition to the senior school where pupils, upon entering adolescence, are prepared to access the senior school programme with essential study skills being strengthened and mastered. They have a trickled-in introduction to a new approach of learning in the senior school, along with the expectations of their new environment.