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Titoki was part of
our family’s life for eight years. We joined other
passionate parents who shared our belief in the
Montessori system and the ideals it engendered. We
all had a common bond of wanting the best start for
our children.
Through the years,
many hardworking parents and teachers have put such
an enormous amount of effort into allowing Titoki
Montessori School to flourish.
We started in the
basement of a house. We had very little equipment
and couldn’t afford to order any from Holland, which
was then the only place then to source specialised
Montessori equipment. A generous parent loaned us
the money, which enabled us to purchase our first
lot of equipment from Holland.
We then ‘graduated’
to a tired and dismal community hall called The Hut,
which amazingly has been transformed with much love
and hard work into the warm, caring and visually
pleasing environment it is today. The Titoki tree
planted in the playground commemorated the opening
of the school. Today a flourishing Titoki tree can
still be seen in the garden.
The name of the
school, ‘Titoki’, comes from the native Titoki tree,
commonly referred to as the New Zealand Oak, which
was chosen as a symbol to encourage our children’s
growth, inner strength and independence.
Since 1989, many
young Titoki saplings, have been given a lot of care
and dedication to allow them to grow and prosper.
Part of our
foundation vision was to develop a Montessori
Primary School aswell. This since came to fruition
with the Montessori classes now in operation at Long
Bay Montessori Primary School.
Kevin and Sara
Joyce, Foundation Parents, 13 November 1997
Updated by Carol
Potts, July 2006 |
