Patronage: A Vision of Excellence for Montessori Primary Schools

 A while back we were in the running for School Patronage in the Blackrock area. 

This is a campaign that is run by the State in order to increase the diversity of schools for today’s youth. Throughout this campaign, the State chooses an area (Blackrock, for instance) in which the locals are asked to vote for a Patron of the new Primary school. Each potential Patron is then meant to advertise and campaign to the public in order to win the vote. 

In April 2019, Peter Maguire, a journalist of The Irish Times, wrote an article on the subject of Patronage. Though Patronage in his article seems a ‘hot topic’, he features St Nicholas Montessori Society’s CEO, Dr Nicholas Breakwell, when discussing the ‘smaller patrons’ that have campaigned for the Patronage of the new school:

One of the most significant of these smaller patron bodies is the St Nicholas Montessori Society which, as well as running the Montessori teacher training college, is patron of a private, fee-paying primary school in Dún Laoghaire.

Peter Maguire

What’s different about them? “Children are bunched into three rough age brackets: three-six, six-nine and nine to 12,” explains Nick Breakwell, chief executive of the society.

“We don’t use terms like junior infants, third class or sixth class. The curriculum is similar but the environment is prepared for the age group, with materials specific to each environment.” 

Nick Breakwell

To read Maguire’s article in full, please visit The Irish Times here.

Though St Nicholas Montessori Society did not win the Patronage in Blackrock in the end, it has opened up a new idea within the Society to found new Montessori Primary schools within the local areas. This, we hope, will lead to the awareness of the Montessori Method and its groundbreaking educational pedagogies in the 21st Century today.