Woodland and Guidepost: Stronger Together
We were thrilled when last year Woodland Pre-Schools joined the Guidepost Montessori network. This opened the next chapter for a group of schools with over 40 years of history serving Hong Kong families. This summer, that transition will be complete.
Who We Are
Guidepost exists to guide, empower, and nurture independence in children from early childhood, preschool through to the primary years. Through our network of schools across Hong Kong and around the globe, we offer programs for children and parents from pregnancy through primary.
The Guidepost Advantage
We serve both children and their parents with holistic support from pregnancy through primary
From the moment of birth, your child has been practicing his or her independence. Learning to eat, to move, to communicate, to observe and understand, and to take on ever greater challenges. Our mission at Guidepost is to guide and empower each child as she develops her independence, her ability to think and do for herself.
Your child is capable of amazing things. In the right environment, your child can achieve the incredible. The internal drive developed in a child when he observes his own abilities fuels a fundamental, enduring love of learning. Our authentic Montessori programs respect how capable your child is, and set high expectations accordingly. We give children more opportunities to make choices and practice their growing independence as they construct their own sense of self and purpose through work that is joyful, rigorous, and meaningful. At Guidepost, your child will develop the deeply ingrained social, emotional, and academic skills needed to succeed as an adult.
Our programs welcome children as young as 6 months through to 12 years old, offering a consistent experience for your family as your children grow and develop. We hope we can continue to serve your family even if you relocate: Guidepost families can transfer seamlessly between our locations in Hong Kong, and those across Mainland China, North America, and Europe.
We're grateful to have the chance to serve the families in our community and want your experience with our school and staff to be as positive as your children's. Guidepost parents have transparent daily insight into their children's classes, tracking each child's growth and development. Our community comes with benefits like access to the Guidepost Family Club and parent education programs. And at Guidepost, we don't charge any fees that don't go 100% towards your child's tuition - no application fees, no capital levies, and no extra costs for materials.
Guidepost programs offer a full-time dual-language environment in which your child will use both English and Mandarin daily to learn. Your child will have one fluent English-speaking guide and one fluent Mandarin-speaking guide in his or her classroom at all times, and be surrounded by learning materials in both languages. In addition to teaching the skills to cultivate reading and writing in both languages, we use both English and Mandarin as living languages, so your child can access the entirety of our curriculum in either language.
We make it easy for you to stay connected to your child’s learning. You have full visibility of your child’s work each day, their progress each week, and their development over time. At any time, you can see your child’s full curriculum, each activity completed, areas needing more work, and skills already mastered. You don’t have to wait until a parent-teacher conference or the end of the year, so you can celebrate with your child the joys of progress and commiserate with the struggle, and provide more support at home where you feel it can help. And you can even share updates with grandparents or other relatives automatically, giving loved ones an insight into your child’s development each day.
You shouldn't have to decide between "happy" schools or "academic" schools: your child's school experience can be both joyful and rigorous. Guidepost programs provide a peaceful, supportive environment in which your child can develop a love of learning. Children in our schools are guided by their teachers through a rich and broad curriculum spanning advanced mathematics, English and Mandarin languages, world geography, and much more.
The Montessori Approach
Montessori education supports children's growing independence at every age. This approach helps your child develop a fundamental, enduring love of learning and attain the deeply ingrained academic, social, and emotional skills they need to succeed as an adult.
In Montessori, “follow the child” often fuels the misconception that children are given free rein in their environments – which can further lead families to assume that Montessori classrooms are entirely permissive and do not instill discipline. However, "child-led" in a Montessori context does not mean the absence of structure, nor does it preclude discipline. Maria Montessori's concept of "freedom within limits" put equal emphasis on both. Limits help to create a healthy balance. In our classrooms, children are free to choose between different works and activities, but it is our role as the adult to set limits – and we set these limits during neutral times. Limits frame expectations and help children be more successful in the work that they choose. We must give them space, freedom of movement and respect that they will progress at their own pace, trusting their own process while remaining present to guide them. They crave the structure that limits give them!
"To let the child do as he likes when he has not developed any powers of control is to betray the idea of freedom." - Maria Montessori
Montessori believed that to cultivate concentration — to truly allow children to explore their interests — we must protect their ability to engage in deep and meaningful work for an extended period of time. For many of us, this idea comes as a great relief. How many times were we finally fully immersed in the throws of a math problem when the bell rang and it was time to put away our work and turn to geography or history? Imagine this in your own life as an adult: what if we could spend a certain period of each day completely uninterrupted and focused on the task at hand? Not having to interrupt work with a meeting. What types of productivity could you achieve? Montessori affords all of this, helping to inspire students to be flexible, create independence, and develop a sense of order. The uninterrupted work cycle in a Montessori program promotes focus and allows the child to build her capacity not just to make choices but to learn the joy of persisting in them.
“Once you interfere, a child’s interest finishes, and the enchantment is broken. It is as though he says, ‘I was with myself inside. But you called me, and so it is finished.’ ” - Maria Montessori
The Montessori approach emphasizes the importance of the environment in setting children up for success. It’s common to recognize that young children are highly perceptive and unusually sensitive to their surroundings. Montessori agreed, and took this a step further: she believed that children use their early experiences to build the very foundations of their minds. If the child finds herself in a world of beauty and order, she can use this to form a wordless confidence that the wider world is beautiful and knowable. She is afforded the opportunity to make clear choices from attractive options, to understand where things go and predict where to find them, to focus her attention and efforts on interesting materials, and to succeed at what she sets out to do. She pours her energy into purposeful endeavors that serve her needs and delight her soul — whether a delicious snack prepared with care, or a vase of flowers arranged just so. Through a thousand small actions and impressions every day, she takes this beauty and order into herself. Conversely, if the child finds her world uncared for and in disarray, she will be bombarded with a cacophony of meaningless and disconnected objects, with unpredictability, and with distraction — and might unknowingly fall into patterns of insecurity and dependency to cope with what she takes to be a chaotic world.
"I then came to realize that everything about a child should not only be in order, but that it should be proportioned to the child's use, and that interest and concentration arise specifically from the elimination of what is confusing and superfluous." - Maria Montessori
In Montessori schools, multi-age groupings give opportunities for younger children to learn from older ones and experience new challenges through observation. Older children deepen their own understanding by teaching concepts they have already mastered, while developing leadership abilities as role models in the classroom. Since each child's work is individual, Montessori students have more time to explore academic concepts at their own interest and readiness. So, rather than a classroom of four-year-olds all being directed to practice phonics at once, a comparable Montessori classroom would have four-year-olds working on any number of language activities at their choosing and experience level. If a three-year old was ready for more advanced language work, she wouldn’t be held back by a classroom agenda. On the contrary, if a five-year old was struggling with language work, she would have access to more one-on-one support. At the same time, there is cooperation rather than competition between the ages because differences in abilities are normalized. This arrangement of course mirrors the real world, where adults work and socialize with people of all ages and abilities.
“There is a great sense of community within the Montessori classroom, where children of different ages work together in an atmosphere of cooperation rather than competitiveness. There is respect for the environment and for the individuals within it, which comes through experience of freedom within the community.” - Maria Montessori
The Guidepost Journey
Guiding and empowering each child as she develops her independence from infancy, through pre-nursery and kindergarten, and up to primary school.
Testimonials
Feedback from families is crucial to our continuous improvement. See what Guidepost parents in Hong Kong have to say.
Our Locations
Guidepost is a growing school network in Hong Kong, with 9 locations across the city, and a global community with more than 100 schools around the world. Joining the Guidepost community provides your family with a smooth transition into school options through pre-nursey, kindergarten, primary, and beyond, wherever your journey takes you.
Causeway Bay
Guidepost Family ClubCauseway Bay
Primary SchoolChai Wan
Guidepost MontessoriClearwater Bay
Guidepost MontessoriHappy Valley
Hawthorn Road
Guidepost Montessori
Happy Valley
Sing Woo Road
Guidepost Montessori
Discovery Bay
Guidepost MontessoriKennedy Town
Guidepost MontessoriPok Fu Lam
Guidepost MontessoriInquire Now
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