December 2018 by Ming Christensen
Upward Bound Montessori (UBM) is a wonderful place to start early childhood education! If you look for a school that is calming, full of personal attention, and focusing on whole child development, I highly recommend this school. UBM is a family-oriented school. Mr. Patrick and Ms. Lei are always very calm when they receive children in the morning and release them in the afternoon no matter how stressful the transition is for the child or parent(s).School leadership and the guides are highly reachable and responsive to parents' requests. Their focus on development of the children shows in their guides. They have stable lead guides and focus on their Montessori education, certification, and continued development. Our son started in UBM when he was 21 months old and graduated when he was five and a half years old; he only had two lead guides, one for pre-primary and one for primary.UBM focuses on whole child development and parent education. Let's face it, as parents we're not all experts in child development, and UBM is there to help us. They conduct multiple workshops each semester to educate parents about child development and Montessori education. This includes recommending various parenting books to refine parental styles to better work with their children at home, especially to understand and have a more peaceful time while their children are going through the "terrible 2's." We are able to have constructive conversation with our lead guide, Ms. Sandy, and head of the school, Ms. Lei, to get advice on how to best work with our son. We found great value in their wisdom for understanding children and teaching us how to properly recognize and respond to their needs.UBM provides a solid and strong academic education in language, art, math, geography, etc. We observed our son's academic progress over the years and are very impressed on what he has learned at UBM, most importantly his ability to think and solve problems. As any true Montessori program should deliver, the practical education he received at UBM is a solid foundation for life.As part of their focus on the whole child, Mr. Patrick hand picks excellent enrichment programs in the afternoon such as art, piano, soccer, chess, and dancing. He is particular to ensure each program provides value to the children, as the old adage goes that you should be getting what you're paying for.If you want your children to have a solid academic and behavior foundation before you send them to elementary schools, we highly recommend UBM.
