Vicky Lumsden Montessori 3-6 Founder, Professional Leader & Service Provider – leads and coaches the Team

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 inaugural 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 each 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, the Phillipines & Chile and Diwali.

Vicky supports Dennise with her English, her Montessori Training and her Te 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, her partner Paul and his son Paimako. She loves monthly scrapbooking workshops and weekly Feldenkrais classes at Movement Works with Sarah and Restorative Yoga with Paula at YOYoga. She loves learning and in 2025 looks forward to the annual Montessori conference in Rotorua which is like a family reunion for her as she celebrates 25 years in Montessori.

Dinah – Qualified Primary & Montessori ECE Teacher – leads Literacy & Prep for School Montessori Teacher

Dinah started out as a Montessori parent when she enrolled her daughter at Gisborne Montessori. She was a trained primary teacher who then did her Montessori training and retrained as an Early Childhood Teacher. Dinah worked at Gisborne Montessori for 10 years and completed her Aperfield Montessori Diploma in 2012 before joining Montessori 3-6, Napier in 2013. She has since completed the Incredible Years course for Positive Guidance with children and attended the National Montessori conference in Tauranga. Dinah has overall responsibility for Literacy and Prep for School as our team look for ways to improve our practice. Dinah works five days and her current strengths are in the Practical Life and Sensorial areas of the Montessori curriculum which lay the foundation for concentration, coordination and independence. She leads our Oral Language development programme with sounds, tracing and word association with our children that participate in News each day before lunch. Dinah has recently done a great job updating our assessment systems to help make monitoring Literacy progress more efficient. Dinah has been attending night classes with Te Wananga o Aotearoa over the last few years and completed He Papa Tikanga alongside the rest of the teaching team. She creates fun with the children and does a great job tie dying with the children every January. Dinah has developed relationships liasing with Learning Support to access help for our diverse learners over recent years as she has become familiar with Makaton and supporting children to become verbal.

Karen Hampton – Qualified ECE Teacher – Lead teacher of Maths

Karen met the team @ Montessori 3-6 back in 2012 when she was the Early Childhood lecturer for Workforce. Prior to lecturing Karen worked in Steiner education for over a decade. Karen joined our team in 2016 and then attended the National MANZ conference with Vicky in Hamilton and enrolled in her Montessori Diploma with Aperfield and the Incredible Years course with the Ministry of Education to learn about social and emotional coaching. Karen brings her artistic talents to the teaching team and has been introducing felting and carving to our children and creating great resources that follow the children’s interests. She works 4 afternoons and shares responsibility for the albums and curriculum progress for children attending afternoons. Karen completed her Montessori Book 1 in 2016, Book 2 in 2017 and created amazing Culture Materials as she worked through Book 3 in 2018. She has made flag material for the children to represent the various cultures enrolled at Montessori 3-6, created Continent folders to teach children about the world we live in and made an amazing Dinosaur Timeline. Karen attended her second Montessori National Conference in 2018 and her third in Auckland alongside Vicky in Auckland in 2019.

In 2024 Karen has completed a weekend training course for NVC called Communication for Connection with Filipa Hope. Vicky & Karen returned to Auckland for the annual Montessori Aotearoa New Zealand conference in July. As a qualified ECE teacher with a Montessori Diploma Karen now supports Dennise and a multitude of Teacher Trainees with their Montessori journey as Montessori 3-6 continues to grow and support the next generation of teachers in NZ.  In 2025 she is already underway with planning another improvement to our outdoor learning environment.  Karen leads Maths at Montessori and has been helping our children graph the growth of their individual sunflowers.

Karen has said:
“I enjoy the close, supportive teaching team and how we as teachers are provided with learning opportunities and working closely with families helping to support their aspirations for their children. I love the way children respond to learning and how we are able to work one on one with each of the children, supported by the very high teacher/child ratios. I like seeing the children learn new skills in practical life, numeracy and literacy and seeing how the child’s achievements light up their face. I like listening to the children as they learn Te Reo and Spanish and they in turn correct my pronunciation and the confidence in the way they do this is priceless.”

Vicki Thomson – Qualified ECE Teacher – Leads Learning Through Nature in our Outdoor Environment

Vicki has been teaching in Early Childhood in Napier and Christchurch for over 10 years. She enrolled her son and later joined our teaching team in July 2016 just in time to join Karen in the 6 month training programme called Incredible Years. Vicki loves the outdoors and works with families and children to create goals that support the development of physical skills and co-ordination. Vicki completed her full First Aid course before starting and attended the Prevention of Sexual Abuse Education training in Hastings. She attended Professional Development at Pettigrew Arena and the book launch of a great book Move to Learn that we have added to our Parent Library that is helping parents realise the importance of movement and how they can support their children at home. Vicki also attended a course at Taiwhenua, Hastings for the Treaty of Waitangi and the United Nations Rights of Children along with Vicky, Jan, Amy and Ana Silvia. Vicki supports our children to create their own Treaty every year which we then use for Positive Guidance and reminders about agreements. Vicki attended Montessori Literacy training in April 2019 in Masterton alongside 8 of our team and Numeracy training later that year in November. In 2020 we all participated in further Montessori training for Culture which includes Montessori Materials for geography, zoology, biology, botany, art & music. She does an amazing job in the garden teaching our children how to care for Papatuanuku. In 2021 she participated in further Montessori training for Practical Life & Sensorial led by Pauline Harter.  For the last few years she has led Matariki and supports our children to grow, harvest and prepare vegetables for our annual winter soup and make Rewana Bread.  In 2024 Vicki had her youngest daughter join us.  Vicky leads Science and for Fun on Fridays does different experiments with our children.  In 2025 she is looking at a range of 11 Science Skills as part of her Outdoors Internal Evaluation.

Vicki said ” I enjoy being at Montessori 3-6 working alongside our children, watching them learn and grow. Our three hour work cycle is a great opportunity for me to work one to one with the children and build close, meaningful relationships. I love the multicultural atmosphere here at Montessori 3-6 and the cultural gatherings that we have for the children, families and teachers to all come together. My passions are the outdoor environment, art, baking and music.

Dennise leads Español/Spanish

Dennise joined our team in 2022 as a Volunteer when she arrived in New Zealand from Chile. I felt blessed to have someone join us who had always wanted to be a Montessori Teacher. We went to the Montessori National Conference in Wellington and explored training options for her and discussed English Entry Requirements. It was wonderful to be able to invest in Montessori training for Dennise through Te Rito Maioha in 2023 and support her in Wellington in March for her first Montessori Materials Workshop.

Dennise was a Secondary School Art Teacher in Chile and also trained as a Yoga Teacher so shares these two passions with our children too. Dennise makes Spanish fun and our families are always feeding back to us about the Spanish their child is sharing at home or songs they are singing.  In 2024 she is working towards passing her English exam in December so she can start her Early Childhood Training in 2025 to be recognised as a qualified teacher in New Zealand.

Erina

Erina joined our Montessori 3-6 community as a grandparent when she was a lecturer for Te Wananga o Aotearoa. In January 2023 Erina attended the annual Waimarama Kura Reo that Vicky was also attending.  Later that year she led an Te Ahu o te Reo contract introducing our teaching team, children and families to the Te Ataarangi Method of Learning Te Reo.  In December that year she joined our team and in early 2024 led our weekly team meetings teaching us Te Ataarangi.  Erina now in 2025 leads Te Reo @ Montessori 3-6.  Erina is a very kind, gentle, calm teacher who really supports our children with their feelings and needs so they feel heard and understood based on our work from Communication with Connection.  We are very lucky to have Erina as part of our team supporting all of us with making and keeping Te Reo a living language every day at our preschool.  Erina contributes to our weekly team meetings providing fresh perspectives and insights as we review and evaluate our teaching, our work with families and our policies that provide the foundations for our work.

Heather

Heather joined our team in 2024 with a wealth of experience in Early Childhood Education.  Heather was the head teacher of a kindergarten back in 2010 when I undertook my Post Graduate study in Early Childhood and was my associate teacher for my placement.  Heather leads physical development outdoors and is undertaking an Internal Evaluation about Gross Motor Skills this year.   Heather also leads Samoan Tuesdays & Fridays and our children start their day learning the Sasa supported by Vicki T.  On Fridays Alix is great on the Samoan drums.  Heather is embracing Montessori Education and utilises the handmade Samoan Sandpaper Letters and Montessori Materials to introduce Samoan to our children, families and our teaching team.

Liz

Liz introduced herself to me at our annual stand at the Home & Garden show several years ago when she was moving from a Montessori preschool in Tauranga to live in the Bay.  Liz is a primary trained teacher and continues to teach in both primary and with us at Montessori 3-6 one day a week and fulltime in the school holidays as we are open 52 weeks of the year.  Liz is a life long learner and attended Te Ataarangi with our parents back in 2023 and with our team as part of evening meetings in 2024.  She is great establishing routines for our younger two year olds and supporting new children when they transition helping them to orientate themselves to our environment, developing their independence, practical life skills like pouring themselves a glass of water and getting cloths for the table and towels for the floor if they have spillages.  Liz is very flexible and flows between teaching indoors and outdoors and across our entire Montessori curriculum.  She contributes her ideas to our planning and evaluation and is great at sharing her daily experiences in our team “Spot the Good” reflective diary which gives us insights to our children and their learning.

Alix 

Alix is undertaking her degree in Te Reo at EIT 4 days a week and joins us on Fridays.  She has her youngest daughter and grandson enrolled with us.  She supports our children to learn Te Reo using the Montessori Materials.  She is interested in the Social & Emotional wellbeing of our children and is learning about the Virtues & Feelings and Needs Cards we use.  Alix is also great at supporting Vicki T with Learning Through Nature in the Garden and this year she is leading an Internal Evaluation about the Outdoors using the Maramataka to see how this can support opportunities for our children to become conscious of cycles for planting, harvesting and the moon and calendar.  Alix is great with the Samoan drumming on Fridays from 8.45am.  She lives our values of Manaakitanga & Kotahitanga.

Jin

Jin joined us in 2024 for her Year 2 EIT placement in Term 2. She shared her Korean culture and language with us. In Term 4 we employed her as a reliever and she joined our teaching team. Jin has been contributing her ideas to our review of our curriculum policies and practices in recent team meetings. In 2025 Jin will continue her studies and join us relieving in her term breaks. We love including and supporting the next generation of Early Childhood Teachers.