Picture a school which shares your ideals and aspirations for a nurturing educational experience for your child. This school responds to the needs of your child at each stage of development, in a carefully prepared way which is appropriate for their age. This environment fosters their creativity, their confidence, and their capacity to care for the world they live in.

Your child is not measured against others but challenged to imagine new ideas and think creatively and confidently supported by a curriculum which offers a wide variety of rich perspectives on the world we live in.

A curriculum which evolves through its innovative, inspirational, and integrative approach to learning.

Here, your child is encouraged to develop a holistic approach to learning and life in an educational setting which balances intellectual, artistic, and practical capacities, allowing your child to realise their own capacity to explore, experience and excel in life in a modern world.

Please, do come along to visit our school and see first-hand the Steiner Waldorf approach. Our staff, pupils and parents look forward to sharing their experience with you.

A Distinctive Education:
Ten Key Points

1. Creativity

The use of drawing, painting, music, movement, poetry, modelling and drama enhances the learning experience in all subjects. A high value is placed on play in the Early Years, imagination in the Lower School and creative thinking in the Upper School. This encourages a strong sense for the artistic and cultural life and is supported by an aesthetic teaching environment.

2. Continuity

In most cases the children are with the same class teacher from age 6 to 13, supported by a range of subject teachers. Key subjects are taught in `Main lessons`: blocks of up to four weeks of the same topic, usually for two hours every morning, allowing for depth, integration and focus. The rhythms of the day, week, month and year give a context that is enhanced by seasonal celebrations.

3. Activity

There is a central place for structured movement, the outdoor environment and learning through doing across the entire age-range. The school timetable may include traditional games, sports, gymnastics, drama productions and an extensive programme of hand crafts and the development of manual skills.

4. The Individual and Society

Social and emotional skills are fostered in a variety of ways:  by the recognition of childhood as a time of wonder, by the family-like environment of the extended Early Years, by the provision of clear adult authority and guidance in the Lower School and by the exploration of global and social perspectives in the Upper School.

5. Inclusion and Differentiation

Whole class teaching is combined with individualised and differentiated learning. Imaginative engagement with the lesson material allows all learners, regardless of strengths, weaknesses and learning styles, to work at different levels within their class group.

6. The Spoken Word

The oral and narrative tradition is brought to life though recitation, drama and an extensive use of poetry, stories, myths and legends from all cultures, often told rather than read. Modern languages are taught from age six.

7. Age-appropriate

Not too soon, not too late. The lesson content and its method of presentation are linked to the children’s emotional, social, physical and intellectual development. Formal education, which begins at age six, is introduced in a way and at a pace that respects the child’s developmental journey.

8. Assessment

The unique qualities of each child can be observed and described, but not always measured. The development of every pupil is closely monitored, mainly through ongoing formative assessment and in-depth study.

9. Excellence

Every pupil is expected to give of their best across all disciplines, thus avoiding one-sidedness and early specialisation. Hard-work, determination and good teaching can always build on innate ability.

10. Context

Steiner schools form the largest group of independent, non-denominational schools in the world. Many are state funded. The first school was opened in Germany in 1919, the first in the UK in 1925. There are currently over 1400 Steiner schools worldwide. There are 29 in the UK and 6 in Ireland. There are over 2,000 Early Years settings in a total of 75 different countries.