Placement of New Children into Early and Upper Elementary Communities

In this season, it is a joy to observe in the Elementary communities and witness how quickly new and beginning cycle children integrate into a mixed-age classroom, in which older children support, lead, and work collaboratively with younger children. A hallmark of flourishing Montessori Elementary classrooms is that children self-organize into a wide variety of work and play groups, and each child identifies as part of a whole community. Children are not artificially grouped and tend not to self-form social silos with same-aged children in terms of lessons, work, or community participation.  

While some Elementary families are yet in a season of transition into new communities, others are naturally curious and imagine what the next transition will look like and what community their child(ren) will enter. At some schools, and perhaps in AMS seasons past, parent requests for specific community placements carried significant weight. However, with reflection, we now take a different approach, which we believe serves the best interests of each child and each community, considering elements that individual parents may not have access to. In this article, I hope to give you helpful insight into how we approach placing each transitioning child into a new community.