Welcome Back Everyone

If our children are to be at school for more than half the days of the year then we can be grateful to be providing, at our school, an authentically holistic curriculum towards the goal of our children becoming well rounded and grounded adults.

To that end….. Before term started our staff gathered for training and as always our focus was on education and the children. No-one seemed to complain that we didn’t run through policies and procedures enough. 

The enthusiasm and goodwill from our staff towards a better and better and better way of delivering the curriculum and ensuring the content is rich and engaging is astounding to witness. A private school like ours which is philosophically grounded and in pursuit of goodness, beauty and truth is, it turns out, a fertile patch for children to blossom. How can it not be when there are  adults with such strength of purpose.

Pupil Free Learning

This Friday is a pupil free day for our staff from both campuses to come together and continue their Professional Development (PD). We are focussing on Working with and Understanding the Will. Bringing the Will into our thinking and feeling and bringing Feeling and Thinking into our Will. How can we be free and authentic in our dialogue with others, in our teaching, if we are lacking the strength of Will to think wisely, deeply and to not follow the herd in our actions? How can we strengthen the Will if we don’t bring clear thinking and depth of feeling to what we are doing. Last PD we discussed Steiner’s subsidiary exercises to enhance control of thought, self discipline, inner balance, positivity and equanimity. This Friday, that work will be extended and deepend. It’s a pleasure to spend time contemplating and working with these concepts. 

Developing Together

When we employ staff we are looking for people who are eager to embrace these concepts. Of course all the teachers at both campuses are registered with the Teacher Registration Board of WA (TRBWA) as a minimum, but then we need to work with flexible thinkers who can bring the Steiner education approach to life. Our Teacher Training course and other intensive courses help with developing staff, as does the Anthroposophy based Pedagogical Studies that we fund for staff to attend weekly, for two years, during school time. 

We are in the unique position of being the only Steiner high school in Perth and we take the development of our High School staff seriously so that we meet our obligation of a quality Steiner education experience for our children. 

Over many years we have welcomed people with limited experience and seen them flourish. The key ingredients being curiosity, a desire to connect on a human level with the students and colleagues and the ability to bring the curriculum in a way that is engaging and holistic. 

Thank you for supporting our staff to have Friday together. Monday is Labour Day and we will see the children back next Tuesday.

The verse below is so beautiful - Myself in my aloneness I must feel…….