Abacus believes that

  • Education and learning continue throughout our lives and the school needs to focus on education as an assistance to life.
  • Education is provided by our total environment: home, school and society, and the educational program needs to be open to this total environment and have a dynamic relationship with it.
  • The child’s development and growth in maturity happen in accordance with the quality of the learning opportunities provided. The school needs to create an environment where the child can operate not at his lowest survival level but at his highest potential. Children are resilient and adapt to any situation, but our intervention should enable them to live positively, rather than just survive.
  • The school environment should take into account the physical, cognitive and affective aspects of the child’s life. Learning environment should be created according to the developmental needs of the child so that the child is stimulated by the challenge it offers, and learns spontaneously and with enjoyment.
  • The educators’ focus should be on the processes of learning rather than merely on the content and performance.
  • Learning should be interactive, participatory and democratic.
  • Each person in the institution should contribute to the well-being of the school and the staff must be given the opportunity for personal and professional development so that the quality of the school is sustained by each and every one.

In order to achieve this, the school has adopted as a framework the Montessori Method whose underlying philosophy is that:

  • Children are autonomous beings and opportunities have to be provided for them to express their autonomy rather than be continually acted upon.
  • Children are eager to learn and this needs to be nourished and allowed to manifest itself in the school atmosphere.
  • Children need to experience and arrive at their own learning.
  • Self-respect is fostered in the children and thereby respect for others as well as for the environment.
  • Children are helped to be in charge of themselves and to grow so that they can contribute to a more peaceful and balanced world.