Steiner Waldorf schools have been in existence for almost 100 years. There are over 1,000 schools and 2,600 kindergartens world-wide and numbers are growing. In Britain and Ireland there are 36 schools and several early childhood centres that offer Steiner Waldorf early childhood education and care for children up to the age of seven years old.
Unique characteristics of Steiner Waldorf education include
In the provision for children under seven you will find
Rudolf Steiner (1861 – 1925) was a thinker and a spiritual investigator who focused on bringing ideas into practice in many areas in addition to education, including special needs education, medicine, agriculture (bio-dynamics), architecture, social therapy, ethical finance, art, drama, movement and others. The system of thinking on which his ideas are based is known as anthroposophy.
The first school opened in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919 and in many countries in Europe and the wider world, the schools are state supported and accessible to all. In Britain, Steiner Waldorf schools have been part of the private sector for over 70 years. There are now two publicly funded Steiner Waldorf schools in Britain, one an Academy and one a Free School, with plans for more.
For more information about Steiner Waldorf education in Britain, go to Steiner Waldorf. This site also gives details of other training courses that are available. There is a parallel early childhood training that is based in London (information from Lynne Oldfield) and there is a teacher training course for teaching children aged 7 - 14, the North of England Steiner Teacher Training (info from NESTT) which, like this course, is based in the York school. For information about a course specialising in the care of children under three, Holistic Baby and Child Care (EYE) please go to Emerson.
For more information about Steiner Waldorf early childhood education and care internationally go to IASWECE