Our Founder’s Message

Vicky Lumsden

Founder & Professional Leader, Montessori 3-6

Welcome to Montessori 3-6! Nau mai, haere mai! Thank you for taking the time to learn more about our preschool. Each day at Montessori 3-6 is an exciting new opportunity to share our love of learning and we hope your child and family will join us.

We have been evolving and improving for the last 13 years and have a very experienced team leading each curriculum area.  Dinah leads Literacy in English and News at Noon and has been part of our team for over a decade.  Karen leads Numeracy and can teach children who love Geometry 2D & 3D Shapes & Maths all the way up to 9999.  Vicki T leads Learning through Nature connecting our children with Science, Gardening & our Worm Farm. She is great with music and teaches our children to play the ukelele. Dennise is from Chile and teaches Spanish and leads Art & Yoga.  Erina and Alix work part time leading Te Reo Māori and Heather teaches 2 days introducing Samoan. Liz is a primary teacher who teaches Fridays.  Our teaching team is like my second family and I hope you and your family will feel the same about us.

Please book yourself  in for your personal tour of our preschool. We will be happy to answer your questions and provide additional information about our Montessori and have a parent library you can access. We will share how our Trilingual approach works and what that can look like and sound like on a daily basis.  Family feedback is important to me so I value all tour feedback and ideas and contributions from our families.  

Our current focus is working towards creating a Montessori Primary & Intermediate option so our children can continue their Trilingual Montessori Education for Years 1 to 8.  If you are a parent willing to contribute to us achieving this goal please email me direct montessoripreschoolnapier@gmail.com

Kind regards,
Vicky Lumsden
Founder & Professional Leader, Montessori 3-6

Our Story

Manaakitanga Montessori and The Montessori Infant Community were two parent led playgroups I founded in 2008 & 2009 with parents from my antenatal group, Plunket and Playcentre. I wanted Te Reo Māori and Spanish as part of a child’s day so they could hear, understand and speak languages other than just English. I cashed in my superannuation and retrained in Early Childhood in 2010 and completed the inagural AMI Montessori theory audit through MMEF. On April 1st 2011 I took over the lease of the scout hall and we opened 4 months later on August 1st. I love Montessori 3-6 and am proud of the opportunities we provide for children, their families and our teaching team through Trilingual Montessori Education. We continue to make improvements through our Internal Learning Audits for rach curriculum area as we respond to the changing needs of our children, families, teaching team, the wider community and government priorities. I love our Cultural Calendar that has evolved over the last 13 years and reflects between 5-10 cultures at any given time.

Vicky Lumsden is both Primary and Early Childhood trained. Her roles have been as a teacher in bilingual, immersion and transition classrooms and as a teaching principal in private and rural settings. She was the founding teacher of the first bilingual Montessori Primary Class in Aotearoa which opened in Rotorua back in 2000. Vicky is passionate about alternative education and has undertaken further Montessori and Steiner study and enjoys learning. She is a political advocate for more families having access to Montessori education for their children.

In 2013 she was the first Montessorian to apply to the government to create a charter school “Montessori 6-12” which would allow children to continue their Trilingual Montessori Education for free. Vicky is committed to continuing to make Montessori affordable and accessible in the Bay with a long term vision inclusive of other cultures and languages. In 2015 she attended the course for Diverse Needs run by Sue Larkey from Australia and completed the 5 out of 5 Ministry of Education leadership modules in Rotorua. She participated in Ko Awatea and attended a course run by the head of Autism NZ. In 2017 she became the Pedagogical Lead for Montessori 3-6 and was coached by one of 24 Curriculum Champions nationally and attended the Tony Attwood training in Wellington about Autism. In 2015 & 2018 she was proud of the Well Placed ERO reports and the acknowledgements documented in the summary. In 2021 ERO changed their system and new terminology was used and the team were happy with the 5 Judgements Sustaining & Embedding. In July 2024 ERO changed their evaluation system again so the team are currently working through the new criteria and working towards Excelling. In August 2024 Vicky applied in the first round of Charter Schools for 2025.

Vicky coaches the team with their leadership roles and appraisal goals and Professional Growth Cycles. She works behind the scenes keeping up-to-date with government requirements including 97 policies, arranging professional development and growing the teaching team. She has the most fun when she is teaching children in English, Te Reo or Spanish and is rewarded when she sees the progress of the children as they achieve goals and the growth of the team. Vicky loves hosting the Montessori community for their annual events like Weekend Discovery Journeys and our Cultural Calendar that represent the children enrolled such as St. Patrick’s Day, Matariki, Independence Day of Samoa, Phillipines & Chile and Diwali.

Vicky supports Dennise with her English, her Montessori Training and herTe Rito Maioha Montessori Aperfield Diploma. Vicky hosts classes of teacher trainees from EIT and the team host individual trainees from many tertiary providers including the NZ Tertiary College. In 2024 they have had students from EIT, Open Polytech & Te Rito Maioha.

Vicky loves time with her teenage daughter Saskia, monthly scrapbooking workshops and weekly Feldenkrais classes at Movement Works with Sarah. She loves learning.

A Strong Foundation for Your Child’s Future

At Montessori 3-6, we have cultivated a vibrant culture where children inspire and learn from one another. Here, every day is an adventure in discovery! Our children engage in activities like the popular game “What’s Missing?”, where they explore 3D geometry materials, learning to identify and name shapes like cylinder, cube, pyramid, and sphere. Parents are often amazed at how quickly their children master these concepts!

Inspiring Learning Through Collaboration
Our mixed age-group and unique approach empower children to not only absorb knowledge through hands-on Montessori materials but also to teach their friends. This fosters a sense of community, allowing every child to contribute meaningfully to their environment.

Developing Cultural Understanding and Concentration
Each day at Montessori 3-6 begins with a morning gathering for karakia and waiata in English, Te Reo or Spanish. Following this, children embark on individualised exploration and learning through a Montessori work cycle from 9 am to 12 noon and again in the afternoon. Our indoor/outdoor flow encourages freedom of choice, enabling children to engage in activities that pique their interest. Research shows that the uninterrupted work cycle fosters concentration, so we provide a safe environment where children can define their work area with a mat and collaborate as they choose—whether individually, in pairs, or in small groups.

Our children love revisiting activities and take pride in returning them to their proper places, learning about both the freedom of choice and the responsibility that comes with it.

Sequential Montessori Materials
At Montessori 3-6, our environment is rich in opportunities to develop oral language skills. We engage in interactive games like “I Spy” to help children associate sounds with familiar objects. Through the introduction of sandpaper letters, we teach letter formation and sounds, laying the foundation for spelling, writing, and reading. As children master the sounds of the alphabet, they progress to using our large movable alphabet and begin sounding out phonetic words and wood-building. Every day includes opportunities for children to build their self-confidence and oral language skills during news. Each child has the opportunity once a week to share the photo album, their favourite book, their favourite Montessori material or something from home. This time from noon each day allows children to experience being part of an audience and asking questions. Our older children lead news each day in pairs.

Nature in Action
Many of our children thrive in the outdoors environment, where they spend a significant amount of their time. Our garden provides a wealth of opportunities for exploration—growing, caring for and harvesting a wide range of seasonal vegetables, herbs and flowers.  Every child grows their own sunflowers from seed every September and measure them as they grow throughout summer. Children love weeding with our wheelbarrow, raking leaves in autumn and taking care of our worm farm. Each year we have an abundance of caterpillars and our children get excited observing the life cycle of monarch butterflies. Throughout the day they engaging in various physical activities like climbing our willow arch, riding bikes or our tractor around our bike track, shooting hoops, playing hopscotch or other games they make up.

Whether they are creating art, building with sand, or finding bugs, our children experience the joy of learning in a natural environment. With activities ranging from gardening to making volcanoes in the sandpit, every day is filled with excitement and exploration.