Montessori: a global community

We came to Montessori East through Leafbud Montessori in Randwick, a Montessori day care. We were part of that community and made a lot of friendships there that we still have today, and some of those families were coming to Montessori East, so we looked into it too.

Montessori East felt like the right environment for our entire family. To watch Matilda go through Cycle 1 and be so happy and joyful is all we wanted. She’s in Cycle 2 now and she loves the extra curricular activities after school, like Pottery and Drama, she enjoys now that she’s in primary school.

Sabbatical in Spain

We’ve been talking about spending a year or so in Spain for years. We want Matilda to appreciate that she is a cross-cultural kid and have the opportunity to dive into her other 50% of her identity. At the moment, as an 8-year old, her world is Australian, with a token of Spanish heritage and some Catalan traditions mixed in. We try to celebrate the Catalan traditions, for example, instead of a Christmas Tree we have the (pooping log) - a wooden log that wears a barretina hat and poops sweets and small gifts.

We try to speak Spanish during dinner, but the reality is it isn’t a fair 50/50 split. Part of our decision also to move is to spend time with Pati’s mother who hasn’t been too well. This has brought some confronting realities about what it means about being with family; Pati has been away from Spain for 17 years.

With Matilda's age, she will be 9 when we leave. If we push it too late, she might be a little too settled and feel resentful towards us for dragging her away from her friends. I think we have hit the sweet spot with her age that she’s really open minded about the experience.

We have enrolled her into Montessori Palau in Girona; an hour and half north east of Barcelona. It is a bigger Montessori school with a high school and teacher training centre, which I understand some of the teachers from Montessori East have done training there. That’s such a nice coincidence, and it also gives a sense of comfort that we are heading to the right place for Matilda and that we are part of a global Montessori community.

The school is trilingual: Catalan, Spanish and English. I think that it will be a comfort for Matilda to know that she can speak English with her teachers. I think both Matilda and I will both feel like fish out of water. It’s all part of the adventure.