At Manor Gardens, great emphasis is placed on encouraging thinking skills in the children through allowing them to engage with information, ideas, beliefs and opinions so as to form their own informed opinions using reasoning and thinking skills. This is achieved through group work, problem solving, reflection, discussion and exposure to many texts. Each child must develop at their own pace, in a non-competitive environment where they can develop their own talents and skills. Despite creating this non-competitive atmosphere, Manor Gardens is proud of the high academic standard of the School and of the many children who excel in both external academic competitions and on starting high school.
Manor Gardens uses the constructivist and problem solving approach to teaching Mathematics. Emphasis is on understanding number and concepts and developing skills rather than being taught a formula. Children actively construct new knowledge rather than passively receiving transferred knowledge.
Literacy is taught using the psycholinguistic and language experience approach, a method which has been used successfully for the past 30 years and encourages reading for meaning, incorporating the child's own experiences while learning.
Specialist teachers in isiZulu, Afrikaans, Music and Remedial education are employed.