Montessori Leadership Guide: Mission Statement and Guiding Principles – Your School Compass

In our previous Montessori Leadership Guide article, we introduced the concept of describing your Montessori school’s identity – the characteristics and nature that uniquely define your school from any other. If you have begun this process, you are on your way to further exploring and defining the values and goals of your Montessori school.

Today most institutions, educational or otherwise, are creating a mission statement that briefly illustrates the purpose and aim of the organization. In a nutshell, a mission statement should be succinct, honest, inspiring and motivating to those connected to the organization. It should convey, using dynamic language, the organization’s unique identity, core values, and primary goal. It can be put into individual and collective action every day.

Display your Montessori school’s mission statement in a prominent place where you, your faculty and your families can easily see it. Include it in promotional material and public documents, such as your Montessori parent and employee handbooks. Keeping your mission statement clear and visible serves to focus everyone’s efforts toward that mission.

By engaging your staff and families in your Montessori school’s mission, you send a clear message of intent to maintain the standard that the mission implies. At the same time, the mission sets a foundation from which to build a strong Montessori community that is ultimately dedicated to the same goal – the success of your students, both in school and in life.

Montessori Leadership Guide: Mission Statement and Guiding Principles – Your School Compass

In addition to your Montessori school’s mission statement, define the principles that guide your school’s mission. These principles further clarify the values that drive your mission and goals, and illustrate the unchanging philosophy upon which these are based. They serve in decision-making processes that move your school forward as a driving force and leader in your Montessori community.

Below are the mission statement and guiding principles for NAMC. There are many online resources available to help you establish your unique mission and guiding principles. See what other Montessori schools, other educational institutions and corporations have created to this end. Engage your teachers and key families in the process to embrace their aspirations for the school and its success. Then publicly display them for daily inspiration and action.

Our Mission Statement

Our mission at NAMC: to deliver high quality Montessori teacher education programs that equip our students with a solid foundation in Montessori philosophy, methods, materials, and interactions needed to create the environment that leads to enriched learning opportunities for every child. We achieve this goal by including comprehensive, innovative lifetime teaching resources with our programs, by engaging our students in productive, active learning, and by effectively supporting each student’s success with their educational journey.

Our Guiding Principles

• Our guiding philosophy is one of continuous improvement. NAMC is committed to continually enhancing its programs and resources.
• We believe that a quality training program is flexible and dynamic with the ability to respond and adapt quickly and appropriately to the changing needs of individuals, and the labor market. Our training is designed to match employment opportunities and student needs.
• We embrace Dr. Montessori’s belief that childhood education must be progressive. It should provide a keen insight into the Montessori method within the context of contemporary psychology and educational and social wisdom. Blending the Montessori approach with contemporary enrichment has proven to be effective, rewarding and beneficial to today’s child.
• We believe that every individual has lifelong, personal opportunities for learning. To that end, we offer an international training program for persons who desire to enrich the development and learning experience of young children. Teachers, teaching assistants, tutors, parents and grandparents all enroll in our programs for a variety of professional and personal reasons.
• We build our programs on the human and cultural richness of our international student body. We believe in the principles of promoting acceptance and inclusivity, embracing diversity and challenges, and inspiring human progress toward peace and harmony.

Some web resources:

• http://humanresources.about.com/cs/strategicplanning1/a/strategicplan.htm
• http://workstarlibrary.blogspot.ca/2010/05/strategic-planning-101-developing.html
• http://www.charterschoolcenter.org/resources

See previous Montessori Leadership Corner blogs:

• Montessori Leadership Guide: Building a Montessori Community

As much as possible, NAMC’s web blog reflects the Montessori curriculum as provided in its teacher training programs. We realize and respect that Montessori schools are unique and may vary their schedules and offerings in accordance with the needs of their individual communities. We hope that our readers will find our articles useful and inspiring as a contribution to the global Montessori community.
© North American Montessori Center - originally posted in its entirety at Montessori Teacher Training on Thursday, February 18, 2010.