Khalsa Montessori School

From the Director:

For over forty years, the dedicated teachers and administration of Khalsa Montessori School have served children and their families in central Phoenix. Our school began with a belief in the incredible potential of every child and the desire to create a holistic school environment that would nurture and inspire this potential. We soon learned that we were most effective when a child's education developed within a partnership of families, teachers and administrators working together to support student self-responsibility and self-motivation. Together we have integrated a challenging Montessori education and a caring, responsible community to lay the foundation for those habits of mind that support happiness and success both in school and in life.

From the Director:

Through the early learning experience provided by our prepared environment, the primary-age child is given a firm foundation for all further learning. Multi-aged classrooms have inviting hands-on materials in the areas of language, mathematics, sensorial, practical life, art, geography, science, cultural and Spanish. By manipulating materials, children start their understanding of concepts in these areas with a firm concrete base. By providing freedom within limits, children are allowed to work individually at their own paces and develop a self-motivated love of learning. They are the central catalyst in their own learning. Self-discovery materials help develop a mind that can independently solve problems and think critically.

An individually paced curriculum is provided for each student as our teachers observe performance and record areas of progress and areas of difficulty. Teachers design presentations and assignments according to the needs and capacity of each child. The indirect method neither imposes upon the child, nor abandons the child to grapple alone. The teacher observes each child to determine specific needs and to gain the knowledge needed to prepare an environment conducive to the child's growth.
Khalsa Montessori School (KMS) teachers allow children to develop their own specific activities within the framework of general educational objectives. Teacher planning may include a variety of possible outcomes for a lesson, thereby allowing for students to suggest specific directions as the unit progresses. Lessons may also spontaneously develop through the interaction of the students, teachers, and outside events. When teachers are responsive to the needs and ideas of students in the learning process, the children become active agents in their own learning processes and experience knowledge as emerging from the self and through social interaction.

The mission of the Khalsa Montessori School (KMS) is to:
-Integrate a challenging Montessori education and a caring, responsible community to provide for the academic, social, physical and emotional growth of students in central Phoenix;
-Offer children a holistic education in which teachers see the children as unique individuals, understand their multiple intelligences, respect their ideas, and encourage their enthusiasm for learning.
-Create an environment that offers young people opportunities to reach their highest potentials:
-academically, through appropriately high expectations, and a rich, self paced learning environment that provides the cognitive tools to achieve mastery and build confidence;
-creatively, through the integration of a variety of avenues for creative expression such as visual arts, creative writing, drama, music and public speaking.
-physically, through the integration of fine and gross motor movement within the curriculum, and through activities to encourage physical fitness, cooperation, nutritional awareness, mind/body discipline, and yoga;
-socially, through an environment where children may develop independence, personal meaning, and responsibility for themselves, others, and our world;
-Build a partnership of students, families, teachers and administrators who create an environment that lays the foundation for those habits of mind that support happiness and success both in school and in life.

Khalsa Montessori School (KMS) believes in the importance of partnership between parents and teachers in supporting the growth of young children. KMS values communication with parents and facilitates a variety of venues for this communication. All events, notices and monthly updates are emailed to each household. Our monthly newsletter provides a continuous update on seasonal programs as well as classroom specific information. The "Current Parent" section of the school website contains the KMS Parent Handbook with all current school procedures and policies. It also includes KMS Education Position Papers that discuss our educational philosophy and a host of other information and links of interest to Khalsa parents.
Parent/Teacher communication is initiated in the student placement assessment meeting, and continued through beginning of the year Parent/Teacher Goal Setting Meetings, the August All School Parent evening, biannual parent/teacher conferences, parent workshops on specific topics, monthly Khalsa newsletters, and classroom observations. Khalsa teachers encourage additional parent teacher meetings whenever questions or concerns arise.
Parents at Khalsa Montessori School are asked to donate 20 hours of volunteer time over the course of the school year. These hours can be in classrooms helping with holiday events or listening to children read, chaperoning children on class field trips, or helping make classroom materials at home or work. Classroom observing and participation in the PTO events and monthly meetings is also part of this volunteer time commitment.