School choice

Democratic / Sudbury or Montessori?

Democratic / Sudbury and Montessori differ most on when formal academics start, technology at school and who directs the day. They agree, more than most people expect, on measuring it, mixed ages and outdoors and the body. Neither is the correct one. What follows is what each asks of a parent, and where the difference actually shows up on a Tuesday.

Democratic / Sudbury

The most thoroughgoing position available. There is no curriculum and no timetable; children do what they choose all day, and lessons happen when a child asks for one. The school is run by a meeting in which every child and every staff member has one equal vote, including on rules and on staffing. The claim is that motivation cannot be manufactured and that a child left to find their own will find it.

What it asks of you

  • Genuine nerve, sustained over years, with no reassuring milestones
  • Accepting your child may not read until nine, and being able to live with that
  • Explaining the choice to family, and eventually to admissions systems
  • Fees, since almost none of these are state-funded

Montessori

Children choose their own work from carefully designed materials, in mixed-age classes, across a long uninterrupted morning. The structure is in the environment rather than in the timetable: what is available is tightly controlled, and what a child does with it is not. Adults observe far more than they instruct.

What it asks of you

  • Accepting a school where nobody will tell you what your child did at 10am
  • Trusting a long ramp — the method front-loads independence and back-loads visible output
  • Checking the school rather than the name, which anyone may use
  • Usually fees, since state Montessori is rare outside a few systems
Side by side

Where they differ

Democratic / Sudbury is the filled marker, Montessori the hollow one. Widest difference first.

L2When formal academics start
when the child is ready, and late is fineearly, and ambitiously

Democratic / Sudbury sits firmly toward when the child is ready, and late is fine; Montessori sits between the two.

E3Technology at school
kept out until latebuilt in from the start

Democratic / Sudbury sits a little toward built in from the start; Montessori sits toward kept out until late.

L1Who directs the day
the child chooses what to dotimetabled, and directed by adults

Democratic / Sudbury sits firmly toward the child chooses what to do; Montessori sits a little toward the child chooses what to do.

L4Where the curriculum comes from
it emerges from the childrena fixed body of knowledge, set in advance

Democratic / Sudbury sits firmly toward it emerges from the children; Montessori sits toward it emerges from the children.

V3What it is for
childhood is the pointit should set up university and a career

Democratic / Sudbury sits firmly toward childhood is the point; Montessori sits a little toward childhood is the point.

Where they agree

Usually more than the argument between them suggests.

  • Measuring it. Both sit firmly toward no grades, no tests.
  • Mixed ages. Both sit firmly toward mixed-age groups.
  • Outdoors and the body. Both sit a little toward outdoors and hands-on is the point.
  • A view of the world. Both sit between the two.
  • Who else is there. Both sit between the two.
  • What a teacher is. Both sit firmly toward a guide who steps back.
  • Money and distance. Both sit toward we can pay, and we can travel.

Neither of these is the correct one

Which fits depends on what you value and on what your week actually allows — and the second of those is the half nobody writes about. The questionnaire scores both.

See which one you are already doing