Note:
If you're seeing this paragraph it means your browser doesn't support style sheets. The site looks much better with style sheets but should still be perfectly usable without them. Please consider upgrading your browser to the latest version if possible. We have notes on how to do that here.

Accreditation

MST is fully accredited by
The International Montessori Council.

Membership

MST is a member of
The Japan Council of International Schools (JCIS).

Elementary Programme Goals

Montessori teachers have four principal goals:

To awaken the child’s spirit and imagination
To encourage his normal desire for independence and high sense of self-esteem
To help him develop the kindness, courtesy, and self- discipline that will allow him to become a full member of society
To help the child learn how to observe, question, and explore ideas independently

A general illustration of how Montessori teachers approach education follows.

Montessori teachers rarely present a lesson to more than a handful of children at one time, and they limit lessons to brief, efficient presentations. The goal is to give the children just enough to capture their attention and spark their interest, intriguing them enough that they will come back on their own to work with the materials. Lessons center around the most clear and simple information necessary for the children to do the work on their own: the name of the material, its place on the shelf, the ground-rules for its use, and some of the possibilities inherent within it.

Montessori guides closely monitor their students’ progress, keeping the level of challenge high. Because they normally work with each child for two or three years, guides get to know their students’ strengths and weaknesses, interests, and anxieties extremely well. Montessori guides often use the children’s interests to enrich the curriculum and provide alternate avenues for accomplishment and success.

Our Educational Goals

Based on these concepts, our educational goals at The Montessori School of Tokyo are:

To enter into a partnership with parents in the education of their children
To encourage the self-motivation and self-discipline that will lead to a life-long pursuit of knowledge
To lead children to mastery of precisely identified intellectual, social, and physical skills
To help children develop a positive self-image as the key to the development of their full potential
To foster open minds, compassion, and respect for others
To balance self-reliance, independence, and responsible freedom with the skills of working cooperatively
To instill in each child a sense of duty and personal responsibility for the world in which we live
To spark in our children imagination, wonder, humor, and joy

All children inherently share these same goals, and we are committed to an approach that allows children to realise these goals themselves and thereby attain their full potential.