Cities / Chennai / Sharanalaya Montessori School
Sharanalaya Montessori School
A Montessori-rooted school on a green Akkarai campus by the East Coast Road, run by its founder and now extending through Cambridge IGCSE and A Level.
In brief
A Montessori-rooted school on a green Akkarai campus by the East Coast Road, run by its founder and now extending through Cambridge IGCSE and A Level.
Sharanalaya was founded in 2001 by Manju Venkat, a Montessori trainer with decades in the method, and it still carries that single-school, founder-led feel rather than a corporate one. The core is AMI-style Montessori from toddler age through the elementary years, with classrooms grouped by developmental stage. Older children continue into Cambridge IGCSE and then AS and A Level for Grades 11 and 12, so a family can stay from the early years to university entry on one campus.
This is a small school, with current enrolment in the low hundreds rather than the 10,000-plus figure that floats around online, which counts every child taught since opening. The Akkarai setting is leafy and nature-oriented, a draw for parents who want space and a gentler pace over the size and exam-factory intensity of larger Chennai schools. The secondary and A Level provision is the newest part of the school.
Reviews
Parents who chose Sharanalaya tend to talk about the things a genuine Montessori room is supposed to deliver rather than results or branding. The recurring note is that the method here is the real thing, with families invited in to watch their child work and to join sessions like painting or botany, and children who come home settled and happy. The flip side parents and former staff raise is less about the classroom and more about how the place is run: a thin co-curricular offering, uneven teacher quality, and a management style that several teachers describe as hard to work for, alongside a sizeable one-time admission fee at entry.
Positives
- Authentic Montessori method. Parents repeatedly describe this as a true, undiluted Montessori environment rather than a nursery using the label, and credit it with visible gains in their child's confidence and independence.
- Parents brought into the classroom. A point that comes up often is that the school actively invites parents in to observe children at work and to take part in activities such as painting and botany dissection, which families read as a school educating the parent as well as the child.
- Caring teachers and gentle setting. Families praise warm, patient floor staff and the leafy, sunlit Akkarai campus, and several say their child is consistently happy to go in.
- Fees seen as good value. More than one parent says they were pleasantly surprised by the fee level for the quality of Montessori on offer, treating it as well-spent rather than overpriced.
Considerations
- Thin extracurricular offering. A recurring caution from parents is that there is not much beyond the core programme in the way of extracurricular activities.
- Uneven teacher quality and turnover. While many parents rate the teachers warmly, some report inconsistent or undertrained staff, and teacher-side accounts repeatedly flag poor pay, no increments and little job security, the kind of pattern that points to churn behind the scenes.
- Management and a money-first impression. A thread among the more critical reviews, from both parents and former staff, is that management can come across as focused on collecting money, with isolated complaints about unwelcoming front-office handling.
- Large one-time admission fee. Entry carries a one-time admission charge in the region of eighty thousand rupees on top of the monthly fee, a structural cost families meet at the point of joining.
Leadership
Manju Venkat
Location
No.23, Sai Baba Garden, First Main Rd, Village, Akkarai, Injambakkam, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600119, India