IndabaFoundation
Give

Indaba Foundation

The Indaba ecosystem
Women dance with joy in a hall full of people.

Our solutions

One prepared adult changes everything around a child.

Community Rooted Education (CoRE) prepares the women who already run early childhood centres. It transforms how they see the child, the rooms they run and the communities they serve.

Ways to get involvedSee the evidence

Our solution

One prepared adult changes everything around a child: the classroom, the centre, the family, the community.

Community Rooted Education (CoRE) is a seven-month, Montessori-rooted programme for the women who already run early childhood centres. Designed by Educateurs sans Frontières, the social-justice arm of the Association Montessori Internationale, and refined in South Africa with the Indaba Institute.

A smiling woman in a grey top stands in front of a blue classroom wall.

The training

A formation, not a workshop.

Seven modules, one week a month, in her own language and her own community, so she never has to leave her job.

Between modules she practises in her own classroom. She learns to observe before she intervenes, to prepare an environment in which a child can concentrate, and to make beautiful learning materials by hand from what is locally available.

  • Rooted in a century of Montessori practice
  • Delivered in isiXhosa, Afrikaans and English
  • Mentoring visits for at least five months after the last module
Our solutions

Inside CoRE

Seven modules. Seven months. One transformation.

Each month a cohort gathers for a week of training, then returns to its classrooms to practise. Swipe through what a practitioner studies, and what it is for.

  1. A smiling woman in a grey top stands in front of a blue classroom wall.

    Module 1

    The state of self

    The adult's own state in guiding the child; rediscovering the potential of every child; the Montessori way of being with children.

    What it is for An adult who sees each child's potential, and her own.

  2. A girl sprays a plant leaf while a teacher watches beside her.

    Module 2

    The environment

    Preparing and caring for the room; observing and approaching the child; daily routines; activities of daily living; caring for the Earth.

    What it is for A calm, ordered room where children can act for themselves.

  3. A child spells the word "pen" with cut-out letters on a mat.

    Module 3

    Language

    The power of spoken language; kind communication; celebrating mother tongue; the foundations of literacy.

    What it is for Children who speak, listen and begin to read in their own language.

  4. Wooden knobbed cylinder blocks, a Montessori material, set out on a table.

    Module 4

    The senses and the intellect

    Classifying what the senses perceive; growing awareness of the wider world; developing the intellect and executive thinking.

    What it is for Concentration, comparison, reasoning: the roots of executive function.

  5. Children hold out their hands as an adult places seeds in their palms outdoors.

    Module 5

    The world

    The diversity of the world; care for all living things; celebrating our own and other cultures and traditions.

    What it is for Curiosity about the world and care for what lives in it.

  6. A teacher laughs with young children around a table in a bright classroom.

    Module 6

    Observation and planning

    Deepening observation and reflection to inform planning; culture and literacy; lesson planning.

    What it is for A teacher who follows the child, and plans from what she sees.

  7. A hand traces a sandpaper numeral 2 on a green card.

    Module 7

    Order and number

    Classroom management; the tendencies for order and exactitude; the mathematical mind; the foundations of numeracy.

    What it is for Order in the room, and the first confident steps into number.

Her journey

From practitioner to the woman who trains the next cohort.

  1. Train

    Seven modules, one week a month, while she keeps her job.

  2. Practise

    Back in her own classroom between modules, mentored by facilitators.

  3. Hold

    Mentoring visits for at least five months after the last module; her cohort keeps meeting.

  4. Lead

    A defined pathway to Facilitator-in-Training, CoRE Facilitator and EsF CoRE Trainer.

What changes

From one prepared adult to a whole community.

CoRE does not end when the training does. It changes the woman who takes it, the room she runs, the children in her care and the community around them. Over their careers, the 500+ teachers trained so far will each teach about 170 children. That is some 85,000 children who get an exceptional early education, where too many get an unacceptable one.

  • Women

    Confidence, dignity, a profession

    She trains without leaving her job, finds her voice, and can grow into a facilitator who trains others.

    500+women teachers trained so far

  • Two young children work with cloths and trays at a low classroom table.

    The classroom

    A prepared environment

    Ordered shelves and materials within reach, many made by hand.

  • A girl reaches to place a block on a tall stack of pink and dark wooden blocks.

    The child

    Ready to learn

    Concentration, independence and early literacy and numeracy.

    2×the national share on track overall (ELOM, 50–59 months)

  • Two women hug in a classroom decorated with children's drawings.

    Mentoring

    Support until practice holds

    The programme is designed so that facilitators visit each centre during training and for at least five months after the last module.

    5+months of mentoring after the last module

  • Two women walk down a street, followed by a cheerful group from the community.

    The community

    Capability that stays

    Graduates can enter a defined pathway to become the facilitators who train the next cohort, in their own language. Centres share a practice; families see what their children can do.

    500+early childhood centres supported so far

  • A boy glues paper with a brush at a wooden table.

    Evidence

    Measured independently

    Children assessed independently with the Early Learning Outcomes Measure.

    98%on track in literacy and language, against 53% nationally

Teachers and centres: Indaba figures, October 2026. 85,000 is a model (500 teachers × about 170 children each), not a count. ELOM figures: children aged 50–59 months, June 2026, compared with Thrive by Five Index 2024 (see the evidence page).

A woman in a red headwrap laughs openly outdoors.

Women

Dignity, confidence, a profession.

The women who care for young children do one of the most important jobs in any society, too often untrained, underpaid and unseen.

CoRE prepares her academically, pedagogically and personally. It restores confidence, professional identity, dignity and purpose, and opens a career: from practitioner to Facilitator-in-Training, CoRE Facilitator and EsF CoRE Trainer.

  • She stays employed throughout her training
  • Graduates can train to become the facilitators of the next cohort
  • A voice in her centre and her community

The child

Concentration, independence, a love of learning.

CoRE carries authentic Montessori practice into community early childhood centres. Independent studies of Montessori education elsewhere point to what that can mean for a child. These are published findings about Montessori, not CoRE's own results.

  • A child spells the word "pen" with cut-out letters on a mat.

    Concentration

    Focus and self-control

    Children choose purposeful work and repeat it until they master it, in a room prepared so that concentration can grow.

    Children who won a lottery place at a public Montessori school showed stronger executive function at five than those who did not (Lillard & Else-Quest, Science, 2006).

  • A hand traces a sandpaper numeral 2 on a green card.

    Language and number

    Early reading and maths

    Hands-on materials make sounds, letters and quantities concrete long before they become abstract.

    The same study found stronger early reading and maths skills at age five.

  • A girl sprays a plant leaf while a teacher watches beside her.

    Belonging

    Understanding others

    Mixed ages, grace and courtesy, and freedom within limits make the classroom a small community.

    Montessori children also showed stronger social understanding and problem-solving (Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006).

  • Children hold out their hands as an adult places seeds in their palms outdoors.

    Equity

    A fairer start

    Montessori's benefits matter most where the start is hardest.

    A three-year lottery-based study found Montessori preschool raised outcomes and narrowed the achievement gap for children from lower-income families (Lillard et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 2017).

How CoRE carries Montessori into the community

The work

What it looks like when the adult is prepared.

  • Women dance with joy in a hall full of people.
  • A young girl in a pink jacket looks towards the camera on a sunny street.
  • A woman studies a small seedling held up in her fingers.
  • Wooden knobbed cylinder blocks, a Montessori material, set out on a table.
  • A woman walks along a street holding a small child by the hand.
  • Women walk together down a street with young children at their side.
  • Women clap and dance together at a celebration.
  • A boy grins on a climbing frame, other children playing behind him.
A boy glues paper with a brush at a wooden table.

Evidence

We measure, and we say what the measure cannot show.

Children's development is assessed independently with the Early Learning Outcomes Measure, and we publish the results together with their limits.

In June 2026, children aged 50 to 59 months in CoRE-affiliated programmes were twice as likely as children nationally to be on track for their age overall. The next step is studies that follow the same children over time.

See the evidence