Do Montessori children do well in traditional schools afterwards?
Children leave Mills at the end of fifth grade for public and private middle schools, and the habits elementary Montessori builds — managing your own time, working without being chased, presenting your work — are exactly the ones middle school assumes and rarely teaches.
The transition that needs more thought is the other one: leaving Montessori early, part-way through a cycle, into a classroom where a child who has learned to direct their own work is suddenly not supposed to. That is the mismatch worth avoiding, and it is the main practical argument for staying in one method through the elementary years.
We are not going to quote outcome statistics at you. Any school that does should be asked where the numbers come from and how many children they cover.
Where to go from here
Other things parents ask
Still deciding?
Call the school office at 650-616-9000, or come and watch a morning.