OPEN MONTEVERSITY · THE COMPLETE PROGRAMME
There is no shortcut to becoming the guide a child needs.
There is, however, a route.
Sixty hours of recorded teaching with Karen Pearce, plus twice-weekly live group coaching — bringing together the theoretical and practical foundations that support a deep, integrated understanding of Montessori practice.
Most guides already possess valuable pieces of Montessori theory and practice. What this programme offers is the opportunity to bring those pieces together into a complete, coherent understanding.
As the modules unfold, you will learn to observe with greater clarity, understand what lies beneath behaviour and activity, and respond with increasing confidence and purpose.
By the end of Module 6, you will have a practical framework for recognising what each child needs next to thrive and fulfil their potential.
Karen Pearce
WHO THIS IS FOR
For guides ready to go beyond their initial training.
This programme is for Montessori guides and assistants working in the 3–6 environment who want to go beyond their initial training. It is for the guide who has been in the room for years and knows something is missing — and for the guide who has qualified recently and wants to build upon the theoretical and practical knowledge.
It is not designed as an introduction to Montessori. If you have not worked in a children’s house, or do not intend to, this is not the right starting point.
Karen you are deeply inspiring and it was a pleasure spending those hours learning from you. I am deeply touched and feel like I'm ready to transform my environment ahahahah. Thank you so much, and I would have loved to take the year-long course if only the time difference allowed.
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WHAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO
By the time you complete the full programme, you will be able to:
LIVE GROUP COACHING WITH KAREN
Direct access. Twice a week. Ongoing.
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In addition to the sixty recorded sessions, every student on the full programme has access to twice-weekly live group coaching sessions with Karen via Zoom. These are 60-minute sessions, held twice a week, ongoing for 12 months with an option to continue for a small monthly fee.
This is not a support forum or a peer discussion group. It is direct access to Karen — bringing your real environment, your real children, and your real questions into a live conversation with someone who has been doing this work for 37 years. The sessions are open to all students on the programme, which means you are also in the room with guides and assistants from across the world — different settings, different countries, the same commitment to getting this right.
If you cannot attend a session, the recording is available afterwards. No session is lost to a diary clash.
“ There are some moments in a class when you see, feel and realise that something significant is going to happen and it’s only from Karen that I have learned how to manage and amplify the significance, how to predict it and make it a part of a real sincere life of our community."
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WHAT THE PROGRAMME COVERS
Six modules, each of ten recorded sessions.
Every module is self-contained; the full programme is cumulative. Each builds directly on what came before. Over 60 hours of coaching.
01
MODULE
Returning to the Source: Vision, Integrity, and Authenticity in Montessori Practice
This is not an overview of Montessori theory in the abstract. It is a direct and honest exploration of what it means to be the adult in a Montessori children's house — what you must understand, what you must cultivate within yourself, and what you must be able to see in order to follow each child. Module 1 builds the vocabulary, the observational frameworks, and the honest relationship with your own role that everything else in this programme depends on.
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The Seven P's framework · normalisation · observation as a science · work curves · the four stages of development · the role of the guide · the art of the presentation · attention, concentration, and true choice
02
MODULE
Guided by Observation: Scientific Pedagogy and Responsive Montessori Practice
How you build September will shape everything that follows. Module 2 addresses the practical architecture of a Montessori year — how to build it, week by week, from the first parent handover through to the fully functioning three-hour work cycle. Running alongside the six-week structure is the complete observation system: the tools that allow you to see what is actually happening for each individual child, record it with rigour, and translate it into a bespoke pedagogical response. These two strands are inseparable. One creates the conditions; the other tells you whether they are working.
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The six-week September structure and WOW framework · a weekly reflection tool for the guide · group work, walking on the line, and storytelling as indirect preparation · the observation sheet, work curve, and carry-through sheet as a connected system · practical life presentations — pouring and the zip frame · the pedagogical meeting
03
MODULE
Theory in Practice: Meeting the Needs of the Modern Child
Modules 1 and 2 establish who the guide must be and how to build the conditions for learning. Module 3 asks the deeper question: why does any of it matter? Every idea Karen introduces here has direct consequences for what you do in the room — how you understand a child who cannot settle, how you respond to conflict, how you think about the freedom you offer and the limits you hold. The guide who has not worked carefully through these ideas operates on instinct. The guide who has works with precision. Module 3 also introduces mentoring: the relationship that makes professional growth possible beyond the programme itself.
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The spiral of development and points of consciousness · the senses as foundation for intelligence · the children’s house as an embryonic society · grace and courtesy · concentration, order, freedom, and active discipline as Montessori defines them · the will as a developmental faculty · the four-stage mentoring cycle and the four strands of observation-based mentoring
04
MODULE
Refining the Guide: Observation, Presentation, and Responsive Montessori Practice
Module 4 moves from philosophy into the precision of practice. The work turns to the details that determine whether the foundations hold in a real environment with real children: how points of consciousness are applied in sensorial work, what the senses are actually doing for the developing mind, how concentration functions as the root of social life, and how you read a child's week using the three analytical lenses. By Session 10, you will be moving from observation to analysis to bespoke programme with growing confidence.
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Points of consciousness across sensorial work — when to offer them, at what level, how to pitch the challenge · what each sense does for the developing intelligence · the touch boards, presentation tray, and stereognostic bags · concentration as the first essential for social development · a full work curve analysis using a real child's week · active discipline and the genuine development of the will.
05
MODULE
Beyond Curriculum: Igniting Wonder in Literacy and Numeracy
Language, literacy, and mathematics in Montessori are not subjects delivered by instruction. They are developments that unfold from within the child when the conditions are right, the materials are alive, and the guide understands what is actually happening. Module 5 covers the full journey — from the theoretical foundations of language through the rich oral environment that must precede any written work, through the ten physical steps to writing, the six steps to total reading, and into mathematics: the mathematical mind the child is born with and the indirect preparation that has been building it since their first day in the environment.
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The two functions of language, the sensitive period, and the four layers of language development · classified card presentations and the three-period lesson · the sound game through six stages · response games and the question game as oral preparation for written language · the ten physical steps to writing · the six steps to total reading · the mathematical mind and indirect preparation · assessment using the DOG framework
06
MODULE
Reimagining Curriculum: From Foundations to Flourishing, an Aid to Life
Module 6 completes the programme. It brings together everything from the previous five modules and adds what was not yet ready to be said: the full architecture of the Montessori mathematics curriculum, the guide’s inner work — the honest self-examination that makes everything else possible — and the silence game, which sits at the still centre of all Montessori practice. Session 10 closes the programme not with a summary, but with the long view: what it looks like when a child has been truly seen across four years, and what that asks of the guide who sees them.
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The five-group mathematics curriculum in full from first number work through the decimal system, linear counting, memorisation, and the passage to abstraction · response versus reaction and the guide’s inner work across mind, body, and soul · positive language and open-ended questioning in daily practice · welcoming older children and supporting children with learning differences · the silence game, indirect preparation, the ten-step approach, and the quality of stillness the guide must embody · writing a developmental overview that communicates character · the long view
I loved the amount of essential information that I received. This programme has answered all my questions from how to follow children's interests and plan presentations based on their interests, how to seduce them into repeating activities and get to concentration, from how to better start a school year to how to understand the true nature of each child and thus help them reveal themselves.
PREVIOUS PARTICIPANT FEEDBACK
WHAT’S INCLUDED
Everything you need, yours to keep.
Sixty recorded sessions, each approximately 60 minutes. Watch on any device, at your own pace, and return to any session as many times as you need. The recordings and all documents are yours to download and keep.
Twice-weekly live group coaching sessions with Karen via Zoom — 60 minutes each, ongoing for 12 months, with recordings available if you cannot attend.
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Access to a global community of Montessori guides and assistants through the live sessions.
Key Learning Points with every recorded session — a written consolidation of the key ideas, useful in team conversations, mentor meetings, and when you return to a session six months later.
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Session Chapters with every recorded session — a timestamped guide to every key moment in the recording, so you can navigate back to exactly what you need without rewatching the whole session.
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Lifetime access to the recorded programme, including any future updates.
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The documented learning across 120 session documents can support your professional development record and inform your mentoring conversations.
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FROM THE COMMUNITY
What Guides Are Saying.
Karen's clarity around normalisation reshaped how I prepare the environment each morning. The children settled in ways I hadn't seen before.
Karen commands her topic with authority and delivers it flawlessly, making complex ideas clear and actionable.
Karen delivers the lessons with great clarity and confidence. She explains each step clearly and systematically, making the content easy to follow and understand.
ABOUT KAREN
Karen Pearce
Co-Founder & Director of Pedagogy, The Montessori Place
Karen Pearce is a Co-Founder and Director of Pedagogy at The Montessori Place in Brighton, UK, where she mentors the Children's House guides.
Karen trained at the Maria Montessori Institute (MMI) in London in 1989. She went on to lead one of their model children's houses for 18 years before becoming Head of School, lecturer, and Course Leader in the post diploma course in Observation. Throughout her years with the MMI she was extremely privileged to be mentored for 23 years by world renowned trainer Mrs Hilla Patell.
She has 38 years of Children's House experience and she lectures and runs workshops across Europe and Asia. Karen also offers a weekly online mentorship programme, Montessori Unwrapped, to support guides in putting theory into practice.
I loved everything about this program. It has made me a much better professional. I’ve been working in Montessori environments for 19 years, but this course helped me take a much-needed "humble pill." For the first time in my Children’s House career, I feel I’ve truly understood the method and how it should be implemented. There were many moments in my career when I felt frustrated—my efforts didn’t seem to align with the results described in Montessori literature, and my environment never looked like those in videos from other sources. I even questioned whether Montessori really worked and considered leaving the method altogether. This programme restored my hope and faith—in Montessori, in the children, and in myself.
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FAQs
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Enrol Now
ÂŁ1497
One time payment today
- Lifetime access to programme content
- 60 hours of pre-recorded video sessions
- Downloadable resources
- Ongoing weekly group coaching calls
- Immediate access
Enrol Now
ÂŁ529
Payments spread over three months.
Total ÂŁ1,587 across three months
- Lifetime access to programme content
- 60 hours of pre-recorded video sessions
- Downloadable resources
- Ongoing weekly group coaching calls
- Immediate access
