Practical Supervised Montessori Workshops During Covid-19
Montessori is a practical method which fosters self-motivated growth for children in all areas of their development. It is a hands-on course at Portobello Institute.
Our ECCE with Montessori Teaching course is now successfully running online through blended learning with optional practical workshops offered to students who want to feel and see the Montessori materials in action.
Montessori & ECCE from Red Pen on Vimeo.
Anne-Marie Parnell is an ECCE and Montessori student who recently attended an optional workshop in the Montessori classroom at Portobello Institute, under Covid-19 safety measures, and said that the experience was hugely worthwhile and gave her a huge confidence boost having never worked in early years before.
“It was hands on with the learning materials, touching them and presenting them for the first time whereas before we would have learned all the theory, written up and watched lots of videos so it was great to be able to get hands on.
"For me personally I don’t have any childcare experience or any chance to get into a Montessori at the moment.
“That was really important, you can look at YouTube and find stuff and you know what things look like but just to get your hands on it and go through the presentations in person.
“The workshop was great, I was a bit nervous personally going in just because it was probably my first time out in the real world for a while with strangers so you’d be a bit nervous, but everyone was careful and did everything they should have done.
"From a Covid-19 perspective it is perfect, people felt safe and there is no obligation to even go to the workshops now if people don’t want to they don’t have to go in.
"Amy and Sarah (tutors) are being really kind and considerate of people’s feelings” she said.
Anne-Marie said the workshop gave her ‘increased confidence in presenting the material’ and a ‘clearer idea’ of how to carry herself throughout her skills demo.
“I definitely came away with a much clearer idea of how I would do it and how I would feel when I was doing it because at home you can pretend to do it but watching Amy’s really careful movement you mirror her, and you can see it when she does it online but it’s just not the same. You get a much bigger picture of her and the whole body movements really which you could miss on camera.
"It definitely increased my confidence because we have to do skills demos and I would have been a bit nervous about that but less so now,” Anne-Marie said.
Montessori practical workshops are held on one Saturday each month.
Simply contact your support tutor to book a time slot for you to come in to the Institute to gain practical hands on experience with the materials under the supervision of one of our experienced Montessori tutors.
