Jessica Gray
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 20/06) - Yellowknife public school board unanimously approved renewing the Montessori School's lease in N.J. MacPherson school.

Bonnie Stevens, the Montessori School administrator said she's pleased.

The $250 per month lease gives a Montessori teacher and the four and five-year-old students more space to learn.

The philosophies of Montessori schooling are independent learning and older students helping younger students in the same environment. Everything is hands-on and encourages students to experience the world through their senses.

Jennifer Burkell has been teaching at the Yellowknife Montessori pre-school for two and a half years.

"Montessori schooling began from a woman named Maria Montessori who worked with disabled children," she says.

"[Montessori] saw that she could apply the same methods to other children and opened a daycare for working parents."