Berkeley International Montessori School, Berkeley | Fees, Rankings, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

Our son enrolled this year at Berkeley International Montessori School (BIM) and we are all happy with his experience. A lot has been said in other reviews about the exceptional quality of the school but I wanted to highlight a couple of things. Even though my wife and I are not of Japanese descent, our son is fully capable of communicating at the school. It’s thrilling to see him speaking Japanese and we have found that the exposure to another language has helped his ability to communicate with others. In other words, don’t let the Japanese aspect scare you if you don’t speak Japanese! The kids soak it up like a sponge, and the teachers expose them to English reading and writing as well.

At BIM they follow the Montessori methodology closely, and we saw its effect on our son quickly. It has been an empowering experience for him. He wants to do everything himself, which we are delighted by. We’ve seen other positive aspects of the Montessori method: his willingness to share, his ability to concentrate on tasks, he cleans up after messes, he communicates with adults and peers well, and others.

We have been happy with how BIM adapted to life under Covid. They have reasonable policies that keep the kids, teachers, and parents safe. It’s a difficult decision to send a child to school while the outbreak is going on, but we feel like it is important for our son to be in a nurturing, learning environment with his peers, and the staff BIM has ensured that their school is safe, with temperatures taken on entry, mask usage, and strict policies for handling children with symptoms.

My daughter is at last year at BIM. She has attended BIM for last 2.5 years. BIM is much smaller establishment than AIM and it has very comfortable atmosphere at school. We love the fact we have a great tight knit community among all the families and teachers.

We have witness the progress of child independency soon after she joined the school. As she grew older, her attentiveness to younger children has began and she loves the fact she could take care of little kids. Her math, Japanese, English have excelled in the past year and has surprised us how much she can write&read, do multiplication, division at age 6.

BIM teachers have a solid team. Saki teacher (Director of BIM) and rest of the teachers have dedicated their time to all the kids to learn Montessori way and give parents good insights and advice on living kids within Montessori way. We very much appreciate all the teachers at BIM.

If you want your children to learn independency and project based approach on learning, Montesorri is way to go. In my opinion, life is pretty much project base and it is wonderful for kids to learn time management and project management at young age.

I highly recommend BIM.