I was in a Montessori program before going to a more "traditional" school. In short, I loved the Montessori method.. and it was pretty much the last time I truly enjoyed being at school. I attribute much of my love of the sciences to the teachers that fostered my natural curiosity in the area.

My daughter went to a Montessori rather than a standard nursery.

From a young age she has always been alert and curious. We also noticed she would listen intently to instruction, understand it and then apply it so we thought a Montessori might be a better structured environment for her that she would thrive in.

She did a tester day at the Montessori that was local to us at the time and she enjoyed it. The toys and games etc promoted thinking, the activities were always thoughtful and considered (printing, painting, crafts, gardening etc). She was there for two years before starting regular school. Most of the other children were well behaved (most likely because the parents had a similar point of view to learning etc).

To date she has done well in anything she tries, which I think is partly her approach to learning which perhaps was supported by Montessori, as well as our support for her as parents.

8 years later and she still has one close friend from Montessori. That child is also very competent at anything she tries, although her personality is a bit more active, and her parents are also very supportive of their child.

It’s probably worth noting that both children don’t have siblings, so that likely has had a part to play also.

I went to a Montessori school for a portion of my education (latter half of 'primary', more or less, I get muddled because I was also moving between different country's school systems), and I actually stayed a year later than normal along with 2 other kids. I enjoyed it, and there were two extremely good teachers there who were very good at giving me enthusiasm for STEM. I would say the system didn't exactly get me to push myself: the nature of the self-directed work meant I was rewarded for meeting targets I set myself, and so I tended to just set easy targets: I would pick the tests/exercises I already found easy and do stuff like a 50-digit long division because I could just churn through it, as opposed to focusing on areas I was not so good at (like writing). But still, it set me up in good stead for the rest of my education, though I found adjusting to the more strict approach of later stages a bit annoying.

A friend of mine went to a secondary montessori, he said he didn't learn much of the conventional stuff but did learn how to knit a chicken.

I have no experience but you might like to follow Matt Bateman on Twitter.