Newcastle Waldorf School

Rudolf Steiner’s indications for educational renewal are part of a general ‘cultural’ evolution. They provide the impulse upon which the school is based. Interpreting our times, our geographical location and the individualities of our students, is an ongoing process. It is a continually evolving union of our various cultural heritages with the elemental and natural forces of our place on the continent. It is a search for true identity as local, national and global citizens. Fundamentally, all our educational practices are directed towards this end. The Newcastle Waldorf School strives to be true to the human condition and archetypes represented in the natural world, whilst consciously marrying this with the demands of our modern society. In 1980 the school registered with the N.S.W. Education Department as Newcastle Rudolf Steiner School and opened its doors for eighteen pupils and two teachers in rented premises at Adamstown.

When a child is ready to move on from Kindergarten they begin their primary journey with their Class Teacher. This dedicated person guides them through their main lessons through the next 7 years of their education.  The Class Teacher takes two year groups together (Class 1 & 2 who are then Class 2 & 3 the following year, and so on) through until they reach high school.

As they approach high school the influences widen to include a little more time with other teachers in the subjects of Music, Art and Woodwork.  In high school itself they will have a broad range of specialist teachers while still being guided by their Class Guardian (often, but not always, the same person as their Class Teacher). This gradual widening of influences is, ideally, providing the child with a gentle awakening into adulthood and society.

Before the age of six or seven, education proceeds by example and imitation.  The kindergarten teacher acts and the children naturally and spontaneously imitate – all activities ideally derive from this source, which is the primal will and sympathy of the small child with the moral guidance of the teacher.  From the magic of nature’s household, the rhythm of the day, and the great cycles of the moon and sun, arise impressions which transmute into story, song, poetry, play-acting, creative movement, drawing, painting, craft and play.  Flowing into these impressions, merges the great stream of myth and fairy-tale, our original cultural heritage.  The child is encouraged to participate in the great world which is at once good, natural, cosmic and human.

The ‘golden years’ of childhood extend from around the age of seven to about thirteen. Ideally, these are the years of ‘picture consciousness’, in which the beauty and wisdom of the world can be grasped through the most powerful of human emotions: respect for authority, and reverence for the great powers of the Universe.  The class teacher becomes a spokesperson for the mighty powers of Nature, and an advocate for the great deeds of humanity.

In the lessons, nature and identification with the land provides the impressions or backdrop for the play of life, which is the transition from myth and legend to history, from the distant past to the present.  All subjects partake of this whole.

English evolves the wisdom of speech and image from story to creative expression, literary appreciation, and cultural awareness. History, concentrating on significant biographies, is in these years, essentially the story of humanity. Science and Geography classes, give a truly sympathetic understanding of mankind and the earth. Number and Mathematics, in the lessons, describe the rigour and order of the world and the ever changing parts of the whole; they are the most important training in disciplined thought which is a necessary human resource in this modern world. Artistic and cultural activities - singing, recorder and lyre playing, individual instrument lessons, languages, painting, drawing, modelling, form drawing, drama, eurythmy, sewing, knitting, woodwork and crafts, evolve and develop throughout the primary years, yet are inseparable from the universal theme:  Nature and human kind.

From the age of fourteen or fifteen to about seventeen, the first flowering and fruition of thought arise from the careful nurturing and guidance of the previous period.  What was subconsciously grasped as picture consciousness, through the faculty of respect, now miraculously metamorphoses, through sexual maturity and the birth of the individual spirit, into freedom of creative expression and self-motivated curiosity about the secrets of the world. The teacher has now more a specialist role, from subject to subject, to encourage and inspire this awakening.  From this period onwards evolves the quest for universal wisdom.

The overriding theme of Nature and human kind is unaltered but the pupils emerge increasingly as free-thinking, discerning and responsible individuals in relationship to the Universe, of which Earth and its history is the focus.