Mater Amabilis Curriculum – A Review

(Copyright © Ruth Marshall, February 2005)

Last year, a new website was launched, offering a free “Charlotte Mason Curriculum for the 21^st Century”. Its originators are two Roman Catholic home educators: Michelle Quigley, an American mother of nine, and Kathryn Faulkner, a British mother of two. The name of the new curriculum is Mater Amabilis: a title which was chosen not just for its primary meaning (“mother most amiable”), but because it also happens to be the name of the Roman Catholic church in Ambleside, the town in England where Charlotte Mason lived and worked.

Mater Amabilis provides what its authors describe as a “Charlotte Mason structured education”, as opposed to a “Charlotte Mason influenced education”. They explain that a structured approach “attempts to follow the methodology set out in [Charlotte Mason’s] own writings as closely as possible. Children follow a set, formal course of study, using a highly efficient method which allows [them] to cover a broad range of subjects in the course of a short school day.” With a Charlotte Mason influenced education, parents pick and choose the ideas and practices that appeal to them – living books, narration, nature study, short lessons – and they use these in a variety of ways (alongside other curriculum materials, incorporated into unit studies, or whatever).

The first thing to attract my attention to Mater Amabilis was its Scope and Sequence. For many years I had been trying to put together a full K-12 Scope and Sequence for our own family, but it was always like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing. Mater Amabilis somehow provided that missing piece. I had consulted many different Scope and Sequences over our 15 years of homeschooling, so what was different about this one?

I suspect the answer lies in the fact that Mater Amabilis was designed as an international curriculum. It was intended, originally, for both British and American families. For the most part, children study the same courses, and use the same materials; but there are areas of study which are different (e.g. national history). In some subjects, different resources are suggested as being more appropriate for British or American children. This is an advantage for those of us who teach our children in Australia. We can see at a glance which parts of the curriculum are considered essential and which are expendable. We can tell where there is room to adapt the curriculum to our own needs. We are also in the enviable position of being able to decide whether we prefer the recommended British or American resources (or whether to use something else altogether)!

Rather than trying to reconcile the different names for grade levels around the world, Mater Amabilis follows the practice which seems to have been common in Charlotte Mason’s own day, of naming the levels 1B, 1A, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Initially this can be a little confusing, but it is all explained very clearly on the website. So far, levels 1B to 2 of the curriculum are reasonably complete; Level 3 (for ages 11-13) includes a provisional book list and schedule.

The range of subjects included, really is broad. All of the regular school subjects are there, plus more. In the early years, children have their lesson books read to them, but during level 2, a transition is made to children doing all of their own reading and writing. Curriculum highlights include:

To my way of thinking, Mater Amabilis really takes on the spirit of what Charlotte Mason was trying to do with her Parents National Education Union. Perhaps the reason for this is that its founders began by reading (and re-reading) Charlotte Mason’s own writings, and followed this up by looking very carefully at the old PNEU programmes. They have taken great care to retain the structure and work requirements for each level, but not necessarily the same books Charlotte Mason used. Whether families are interested in the whole curriculum, or in single subjects, there is a lot of very helpful information and advice to be found – both on the Mater Amabilis website, and in the Teacher Training Forum that supplements the curriculum.

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