← Back to homeEscuela Alma Montessori
Cartagena, Spain · est. 2016 · Private
Illustration · Cartagena
Alma Montessori is a Montessori school in Pozo Estrecho outside Cartagena, on the Finca La Gregoria estate; in law it is the cooperative ESCUELA ALMA MATER S.COOP. The project came to light in May 2016 in the village of Miranda near Cartagena with a nought-to-six stage, held together by three families; by 2017 it was a group of six professionals who were not satisfied with what traditional education offered children. When a primary stage became necessary, the school found its way through the American NEASC, which it describes itself as a recognition body that accompanies alternative and innovative projects and encourages the use of a second language in school. In 2019 the school moved to Pozo Estrecho and opened the Taller stage; today it takes children from roughly four months to twelve years. The school builds English in transversally, across every environment and every area of the day, so that the child feels its usefulness and grasps the cultural dimension of using it. Its first environment, the Nido, is designed for babies from about four to eighteen months and is built on free movement: the furniture sets the child small challenges, and the adult accompanies rather than intervenes.
Key facts
Languages of instruction
Spanish, English
Admissions The school publishes no admissions procedure: on its contact page a family picks in a form what it is asking about - enrolment, the summer school, adult training or extracurricular activities - and the school replies; it can also be reached by phone or email. The school names no deadlines, documents, admission conditions or open days.
Stages and year groups Grades Nido 4-18 months - Taller, up to about age 12. The stages: Nido - roughly four to eighteen months, Comunidad Infantil, Casa de Niños and Taller. In all the school covers roughly four months to twelve years.
Address Finca La Gregoria, nº 2, Pozo Estrecho, Cartagena
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
NEASC · accreditationschool is in an official registryconfirmed by a school document, by membership or by taking part in a networkclaimed by the school, no confirmation, not counted in the scoreGuide to all organisations → What stands behind each entry
NEASCNew England Association of Schools and Colleges
An American accreditation working since 1885. For international schools it uses an approach where the visitors look first at live lessons rather than at folders of paperwork: the team works in the school for about a week. It is the only one here whose public directory honestly separates accredited schools from candidates.
What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Montessori
The pedagogy of Maria Montessori: a child chooses the activity, works at their own pace with special materials, and mixed-age groups are arranged so that older children teach the younger ones. It is used most often in the nursery and primary stages.
What this means for this school. The name Montessori belongs to nobody: any school may call itself a Montessori school, and there is no single body that checks this. There are associations that train teachers and recognise schools, but membership of them is voluntary, and our entry means exactly that the school describes itself this way. This pedagogy has no leaving certificate, so what to look at is what the school finishes with.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
The school publishes nothing about where its leavers go: no share going on to university, no exam results, no list of universities.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
·Theatre or assembly hallnot stated on the website
·Librarynot stated on the website
·Cateringnot stated on the website
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Campus: The school stands on the Finca La Gregoria estate in Pozo Estrecho. Separately it describes the prepared Nido environment for babies and the outdoor environment as part of the project, along with strands for nutrition, environmental education and ecology.
Summer camp: the school runs its own camp; whether it takes children from outside is not stated on the website
The school has a summer school - a section of its own, "Escuela de verano".
Teaching staff from the school's official website
·Teachers listed by namenot published
·Teacher qualificationsnot stated
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
On its team page the school presents ten people by first name, including a vegetarian and vegan chef. Among the educators are a Casa de Niños guide with a nursery teaching qualification; a primary teacher who is also an AMI Montessori guide for Casa de Niños and Taller; a Casa de Niños assistant and Taller co-guide with a primary teaching degree specialising in special education and training in social education; a primary teacher specialising in music and English with twenty years of experience; a primary teacher specialising in English as a foreign language; and a graduate in psychology and pre-school education who studied Montessori philosophy with AMI. The school gives no pupil-teacher ratio and no group size.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
The school says nothing on its website about security, medical care or pupil support.
Reviews
No reviews yet. The community rating counts towards the score once a school has five verified reviews - until then we do not show a zero, so as not to mislead.
Criteria breakdown criterion weight in brackets
Academics and programmes (16%)60 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data55 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data55 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data60 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data55 Value for money (6%) scored at the median74 "Scored on disclosed data" stands where we count only what the school has written about itself on its own site: exams and destinations, safety and wellbeing, teaching staff, facilities, clubs and activities. A low score here means the school does not write about this, not that the school does not have it: a school with good security and a sparse site will score low. A school can fill in its profile, and the score will be counted again.
The score is counted from 7 of the 9 criteria.Only those with checkable data count: programmes and accreditations from official registers, the fee from a published price list. Where it says "scored on the median", the school has no data and the middle of the list is put in its place, so that a gap gives no advantage. Admissions, teaching staff and reviews come in as their data arrives.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country