Modern Montessori International Pre School

Hi,

I just joined this expat forum and chanced upon your posting regarding MMI.

I sent my 2.5 year old daughter to MMI and did not have a good impression of them. This was a few years ago and things may have changed there.

My daughter was moved from pre-k to K1 and then to K2 in a short span of a few months due to her maturity. She could write her name at 2.5 years old.

The trouble started when she was moved to K1 and then K2. The older kids bullied her terribly and called her names like 'baby' and said things like  'I don't want to be your friend".

The teachers did nothing about it and my daughter suffered until we decided not to continue at MMI. The owners of the school are Indians who are not really professional educators by profession. They are probably in it to make a profit and pay no tax. You are tax exempt if you run a school.

We also had problems with the admin. They overcharged us for the school fees and it took forever for a refund on the difference because the school owner were signing checks and this kind of thing don't seem to be a priority with them until you need to  make your voice heard.

Sending your young kid to start school this early can be stressful.  They also get sick more often and share germs and parasites. My daughter suffered serious sinusitis that landed her in hospital due to the toxic high content of chlorine they put in the school pool.

In a nutshell, I regretted sending her to this school. I also regretted jumping on the band wagon of early learning propaganda that resulted in me following others like sheep, thinking that Early Learning will make your child a genius or get ahead in life better. I no  longer think this is true.

Parents are the best teachers to their kids. It is not too late to wait even until 6 to send your kids to school. They learn much better at home, at their own pace and are free to be the child that they are without social pressures.

This is my opinion and I hope my experience helps you.



My daughter was so scarred from this incident that she no longer wants to go to school. So we are homeschooling her until she is ready...

Hi Brenda,

Thanks for the info. Sorry your daughter had a bad experience there, luckily she has you, and she's enjoying homeschooling.

My son dislikes when I start to teach him anything, if he has to sit with me for more than 5 minutes and he realizes it's 'school work' his mind starts wondering, and he's ready to play. He does extremely well at school on the other hand. Actually his first pre-school was in New Delhi, India. He started just before he turned 2, and he loved it, he was even learning Hindi, and speaking it too, but the teachers encouraged him to speak English, I guess to help the others learn the English language.

Indians can be difficult to deal with, having lived there for a year, but usually once they leave India and are exposed to the outside world, they tend to be more open-minded and advanced, and less backward. So I am hoping that things at MMI will run smoothly for me, that I like it, and that my son loves it. Actually I am planning to visit the school tomorrow. I have contacted a couple of schools and this seems to be the most affordable of the 'best', after going through several websites on international schools.

I hope it all works out for the best, in our favour...

Another recommendation that i would like to give ( or I can think of )  is that perhaps you could ask in forums of teachers that work around Thailand since they know the insides of the schools better and they could give a better approach to the teaching methods and systems of management and so on. Ajarn.com it could be a good place to start. Hope it helps.

Thanks Luis!

Hi....

I paid a visit at the school today. I had a tour of the school, the classrooms and toilets, indoor gym, library, swimming pool...Got a brief on the montessori system, then discussed payment, and got a break-down of the payment, written down, so no confusions later. Since we're starting practically in the middle of the term, I'm required to only pay half of the term's tuition fees, which I was expecting/hoping to be the case.

I received an envelope package with the brochure of the school - philosophy, mission, programmes and activities. along with a 2011/2012 academic calendar, weekly activity schedule, and a (monthly) meal plan.

Right away my son wanted to join the other kids, he particularly liked the cars and bikes they had in the general play area. I had to persuade him that it's time to go home, so I know he's looking forward to go back. Since he'll be three just a few days from now, we're placing him in the K1 Group (age 3-4years) instead of the initial choice of Nursery (age 2-3years), he looked so big and tall compared to the children in the Nursery group so it's better I think to put him with the older kids, he'll probably be the youngest or one of the youngest, but he has always liked hanging with bigger/older kids, so that's fine with me, (as long as they don't take a set on him, which I doubt, none of the kids gave that impression. Besides that, it's a montessori, where each develops/progresses at his own pace.

The VP (Ms. Lily) is a young Indian woman, around my age in fact, she seemed quite ok, no intimidation, superiority nor lack of professionalism felt. She said she's been in Bangkok over 14 years so this does make a difference to me, re what I said in my previous post, about having been exposed to the outside world. So that was definitely a positive sign for me. The other staff members were Thai and a few from other countries, while most of the children are Japanese, and a few from other foreign countries. The school has been accredited by several bodies including the International Schools Association of Thailand. This was what enabled me to narrow down my search and research.

So far so good, I'll be starting him on Monday, he has swimming on Thursday which I hope will be a good experience, and hopefully the Friday he'll have his birthday party in his class.


Samantha

Hi there,
Just registered to seek a follow up on this as we are contemplating putting our almost 4 year old daughter in MMI.
How have your experiences been so far?
Best,
Tibor

I think MMI is a good school but not a great one. Some of the teachers are lovely but I have noticed that some don't seem to love children (love their jobs?) and it shows in their interactions with the kids. Also they routinely show the children videos, which I do not think is appropriate at all. I know Leap Frog's Letter Factory is an excellent program but a school is supposed to be actively teaching. Also, some small things, such as never having soap in the adult bathroom, are very troublesome. The food never looked very appealing to me, and they always serve sugary juice boxes at snack. Sorry, but that does not strike me as healthy!  The philosophy is great, and Mr. Cedric is a great teacher, though.