Radcliffe Montessori American Preschool

Radcliffe Montessori American Preschool caters to children aged 12 months to 6 years old. We are located in Shanghai, China.

The history of Radcliffe Montessori American Preschool starts in Massachusetts, USA from a collaboration between Mikatasa Group and Shrewsbury Montessori School, founded in 1972. Both organizations envision to make authentic, high-quality Montessori schools accessible to more families around the world. Shanghai—one of the largest cities in the world—was chosen to be the first location and thus, Radcliffe Montessori American Preschool was born.

The name Radcliffe was inspired from Radcliffe College, a groundbreaking women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was founded in 1879 “to furnish instruction and the opportunities of collegiate life to women and to promote their higher education.” In October 1999, Radcliffe College and Harvard University officially merged, thereby establishing the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. The name Radcliffe also reflects our roots in Massachusetts—a state rich in educational pedigree and home to institutions such as Harvard and MIT.

Shrewsbury Montessori School is a school with close to 50 years of history and has been granted the highest level of recognition offered by the American Montessori Society—the largest Montessori organization in the world. Radcliffe Montessori American Preschool brings the exceptional history and quality, as well as utmost passion and dedication, to serve our community with authentic and high-quality Montessori education.

Our vision is to guide every one of our students to a life that is happy and fulfilling by nurturing their individual gifts and fostering a lifelong love of learning; and to build a vibrant, diverse community that respects students, inspires teachers, supports families, and enhances the society.

Our mission is to prepare and foster the development of the whole child in a safe and nurturing environment while sparking their natural curiosity and their innate love to learn. With the teacher as their guide and a hands-on approach to learning, we aim to cultivate a self-disciplined, self-confident, independent, and academically prepared global citizen who is cognitively, socially, emotionally, and physically aware.

All of our teachers have received professional training from the American Montessori Society (AMS) or the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI). Leveraging the children’s “sensitive periods” and adhering to the educational philosophy of "follow the child", our teachers tailor the curriculum to each child's individual learning pace, contributing to each child’s personal development. 

All of our classrooms are equipped with high-quality professional Montessori teaching materials and furniture such as Nienhuis from Europe and Ancona from Taiwan. We design our classrooms according to the five key areas of Montessori education (Practical Life, Sensorial, Mathematics, Language, and Culture) and always with children’s characteristics in mind, resulting in a safe, caring, and intellectually stimulating environment for children.