Dr Maria Montessori was born in 1870 and was the first woman doctor in Italy to have studied Education, Philosophy, Psychology and Anthropology.

At 28 she worked with defective children and designed materials and techniques that allowed the children to work in areas considered beyond their capacity. Montessori’s “defectives” passed the state exams along with the normal children. She concluded that if retarded children could be brought to the same academic level as normal children, something must be wrong with the education of normal children.

At the age of 37 she took responsibility for a group of poor children in the slums of Rome and founded her first school which later became world famous.

Dr Montessori lectured throughout the world and wrote many books. She designed an extensive range of special teaching materials which form the basis of the materials that are used today.
Training courses and schools sprang up and have since flourished.