For over 20 years hundreds of families mainly from the eastern suburbs but also other parts of Wellington have thoroughly enjoyed their early childhood experience at Montessori Children’s House. The school was first established in 1995 by Cam and Frank Cole. Sue and Doug Walker took over the ownership and management in 2011 until 2019 when Alex Wang and Joanne Tang became the new owners of the school.
Alex started teaching in 2015, when he started his study of Graduate Diploma in Teaching in New Zealand Tertiary Colleague. After graduating Alex started working at Kindercare Learning Centres in Karori. Over the 3 years of working at Kindercare, Alex gained knowledge of children and their learning, as well as becoming team leader in the school. In 2019, Alex has taken over Montessori Children's House and has immediately fallen in love with the Montessori Philosophy. He believes that the Montessori Philosophy can truly provide the children with what they need, and help them to become someone that can make a difference to the world. Therefore Alex has taken further training in Montessori Philosophy including the AMI 3-6 Certificate Course (2019), and AMI 0-3 Certificate Course (2021) at MMEF, and he is planning to start his Diploma training of AMI Montessori 3-6 in 2023.
At the age of 14, Beccy began working as a nursery assistant after school and during the holidays in her parents’ Montessori pre-school in Kent, England. Beccy was always heavily involved in the making and modeling of materials for the classrooms, and at 25 she trained and qualified as a Montessori 3-6 teacher herself, with the same tutors her parents had trained with two decades earlier. She worked for two years in her parents’ pre-school before undertaking a Post-Graduate Diploma in Primary Teaching. She worked as a new entrant’s teacher in a state primary school, and then firmly decided that Montessori was her passion and the way forward. In 2015 Beccy made a permanent move to Wellington from the UK and worked for two years at Capital Montessori School in Kingston. Beccy joined the teaching team at Montessori Children’s House from 2018; in 2022, she became Lead Teacher for our school
Mary has been working with children and their families in Montessori environments for the past 25 years. She trained at Sion Hill Montessori College in Dublin and is qualified to work in 3-6 and 6-12 classes. She also has a New Zealand ECE degree and a degree in Theatre and Film (her other great love) from Victoria University. Mary grew up in Ireland and came to New Zealand in 1989 to set up a new classroom in what is now Capital Montessori School in Kingston. She taught at Wa Ora Montessori for six years, part-time at Otari Montessori School, before coming to work at Montessori Children’s House in Miramar in 2007. She and her daughter started on the same day.
Malgorzata holds a teaching diploma from Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. In 2011, she moved to Wellington. After working for a few years in another industry and giving birth to her daughter, she realized that working with young children is her true calling. She began studying for her Post-graduate Diploma in Teaching (Early Childhood Education) at Victoria University of Wellington in 2011. Malgorzata has been a part of the community at Montessori Children's House since 2020, when her daughter Lily started attending. She did not hesitate when the opportunity arose to take on a teaching position at the school. Having always considered Montessori philosophy aligning well with her own beliefs about child-led education, Malgorzata took this chance to further her knowledge about the Montessori approach. She is planning to start her Montessori training in the near future.
