Extended Day

Most pre-school facilities in New Zealand are structured around children leaving at age five in spite of a legal starting age of six. Teachers and parents alike notice that children undergo significant changes at around age 6. Maria Montessori’s observations led her to structure her educational programme in three year blocks and so the Children’s House was designed for 3-6 year olds. 

As the five year old child grows, new skills are gained, self-confidence increases as does concentration, and a developing sense of ethics and social justice. The Extended Day programme is designed to cater especially for five year olds so that they may test out their new skills in an environment more supportive of their still-fragile self-confidence. 

Rangimarie MCH has developed good relationships with neighbouring primary schools, from Tawa through to Wilton (Otari (formerly Wilton) School offers a Montessori primary stream) who have an understanding of the work we do with our five year olds and are supportive of children entering their schools at age six.  In fact, although the Montessori classrooms at Otari School will enrol 5 year olds they encourage parents to keep them in the pre-school environment until age 6. This enables a much easier transition into the 6-9 curriculum.
Extended Day children bring their own lunch to school. Their afternoon follows the same routine as the morning session. Lunchtime is conducted in the upstairs classroom where children learn to lay tables with tablecloths and vases of flowers. They then sit in small groups to eat and socialise. Children are responsible for post-lunch clean up and are encouraged to spend time relaxing outside. 
Afternoons tend to be more structured for extended day children, although a certain amount of free choice is retained. Children are usually taking home reading books by this stage so language work is often a focus. More advanced maths work is able to be conducted within the smaller group (usually 10 children). Children also work on various projects together. Social and ethical issues are often discussed with this age group who are sensitive to issues of fairness and responsibility. 
Smaller group size enables staff to include short field trips in this afternoon time. Past trips have included visits to the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Open Day, the Botanical Gardens Education Centre and the Exhibition of the Century at the City Art Gallery. For the latter, children had studied some of the exhibited paintings in the weeks preceding the visit and many exclaimed with delight upon encountering “A Picasso!” or “A Van Gogh!”. Post-visit activities included rendering their own versions of the Great Masters with fascinating results.

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