Play English started off in Vedano al Lambro, on the 7th of March 1995 as an after school playgroup program, for children aged 3-5, who came to learn English through play. In September of that same year, and after parents requests, we managed to get a classroom at the Oratorio Maschile of Vedano al Lambro, where we continued with our after school programs on five afternoons per week from 4pm to 6pm and Saturday mornings. We also added half day morning sessions for children aged 2 to 3. The demand was such that in September 1996, we had to ask for another two classrooms and extend our day time programs to full day provision(9-4). We also extended this provision to cater for ages 1-5, while the after school and Saturday morning programs carried on gaining popularity. It was already quite clear by then that, the premises we were occupying were going to grow tight by the end of the school year. Thanks to joint and very challenging efforts by both enthusiastic parents and the owner of the school, a suitable building in via Confalonieri 18 Monza was identified, where we moved in October 1997, by occupying two thirds of it. At the time, we moved in with 18 children attending the pre-school day programs and another twenty or so attending the after school programs.

In 1998 our enrolments increased further, but the parents of the very first children, who by now were approaching the elementary school age(by Italian law), had also began to exert pressure for “continuation…..” In 1999 we see our numbers triple and the first Elementary school class starts off as an experimental mixed age class(5 & 6 year olds). Parents were thrilled over their children’s progress and determined not to let go, despite the logistic difficulties, (the new premises were not really suitable for an elementary school). We had to think carefully of how we were going to go ahead to fulfil such a request.
The key factor that attracted our parents was the aspect of Bilingual Education which underpinned our school philosophy and which, parents knew full well that no other schools, be it state, private or “foreign” could offer.
Having found a logistic arrangement to accommodate this first elementary school class within the pre-school building, our major task was that of ensuring a program of studies that could guarantee a type of education which would meet the expectations of both the Italian state school and British curricula. Thanks to the determination of our committed parents as well as to competent and committed teachers and the specialist know-how already existing in the school, the Bilingual School of Monza decides to lay the foundations for an Enriched Model of education.

To measure the effectiveness of such an innovative model (in an Italian context of course), and to reassure parents that their children were not missing out in any of the academic areas of the traditional state school education, it was agreed since the beginning with parents, that children’s progress would be closely monitored and assessed even through formal standardised tests at the end of each school year. This has been happening since the beginning, and the results obtained so far, tend to show our pupils at the same academic level or above that of their monolingual counterparts.
In 2000 and 2001 the elementary school grows by two more classrooms but still not big enough to allow for premises expansion. In 2002, our numbers go up to 120, and the need for expansion is now strongly felt. We decide therefore to take over the rest of the building (an extra 700 m2 or so) which has allowed us to create all the elementary classrooms, a multimedia room with computers, satellite TV and video conferencing facilities and a gym with even boys and girls showers! The Bilingual school of Monza has now become a reality on local territory offering thus an alternative model of education which is gaining constant popularity.