Introduction
The Montessori Schools El Enebral, Los Fresnos and Los Fresnos Mataespesa are private co-educational schools offering an English based education to children from age 2 onwards.

The schools are recognised both in England and Spain and the children are taught all areas of the English National Curriculum along with the basic core subjects from the Spanish curriculum (LOGSE). The academic programme is therefore suitable for both British nationals and Spanish children wishing to receive a British or bi-lingual education.

The schools are based in the Villalba area about 40km from Madrid . Villalba, which is an expanding town, provides most of the schools population, other children coming from surrounding villages. Villalba has both easy access to Madrid and to the Guadarrama mountain range with its natural parks and ski resorts.

From the Montessori philosophy to the National Curriculum
Maria Montessori was born in Italy in 1870 and became the first female doctor in her country. Educated by an authoritarian father, she developed an educational system based on approaching the child as an individual. The Montessori method aims to create a stimulating environment, where children can develop the necessary self-assurance and self-confidence, to acquire new skills and knowledge and develop their curiosity and abilities to discover. According to Montessori, a pupil is autonomic and has initiative: an active, responsible individual who enjoys work. The teacher is a guide and should create the learning environment and provide stimulating situations where effective learning will take place.

Putting into practice what Maria Montessori insisted on frequently during her life, our school INTERPRETS the Montessori ideas and we ADAPT the method to the current society we live in, to make sure we can offer high quality education to each one of our students.

Our main goal is to offer an education that combines the advantages of the BRITISH EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, without forgetting that our students each have specific needs to attend to and respecting their phases of internal change. The main challenge for us is to guarantee that our students reach their personal potential while striving for academic excellence, just as Maria Montessori outlined in her educational principals.

Through carefully planned and organised activities, a pupil will enjoy success to reward his/her effort and acquire a sense of self confidence and self esteem becoming an independent learner. This will augment motivation to be creative and original and promote self expression. The student becomes the centre of his/her own learning process and the class room organisation revolves around promoting student interest. In an Early Years class room, there are different areas of interest where children will work on activities designed to complement the curriculum.

Our programmes of study for Infants incorporate experiences and certain methods inspired by the Montessori philosophy , with contents based on British Nursery and Reception objectives (Foundation Stage), designed to stimulate the development of each child as an entity, the whole child. To promote basic habits and skills, abilities, ideas are thought essential for the life long learning.

The initiation of second language learning is most effective during the language sensitive development stage (0 to 6 years old). At Montessori School , children are exposed to English in Early Years / Foundation Stage in an immersion environment which offers a greater guarantee of language acquisition for successful learning.

During Primary and Secondary education, our educational system progressively flows into a structure which is entirely based on the National Curriculum, maintaining nevertheless the Montessori spirit which will help our students throughout their learning period to become autonomic, responsible persons who are sensitive to the problems and needs of the society they live in.