For Choice in Education
About the Curriculum
The methodology of teaching works consciously with the developmental phases of childhood. Before the age of seven the child learns out of imitation rather than direct instruction. In the Lower and Middle School the instruction proceeds from the pupils’ soul activities of willing, through feeling to thinking while in the Upper School the emphasis is reversed. All Waldorf teaching proceeds from the whole to the parts and back again, and addresses the three-fold nature of the human being. Rhythm and repetition are key teaching tools throughout the school.
Early Years Provisions
In our Early Childhood programme we work with children in the first phase of human development, which is primarily focused on building the physical body and strong healthy senses as a foundation for future learning. It is a time when the child learns best through imitation and play rather than instruction. In the first seven years of life, children are one with their surroundings.
The Lower School
Between the ages of approximately seven and fourteen children have completed the physical growth and change that makes school learning possible. At this time, they enter a new stage which is concerned with the development of habits and techniques. This new interest in school is nurtured through a relationship of loving authority between the teacher and pupil.
The Upper School
The adolescent has reached a stage of development in which the individual sense of self is emerging in relation to a growing intellect and search for truth. As teenagers mature inwardly, they also grow socially. The teenage years are a time when adolescents hone their powers of judgment and seek to align their inner ideals with truths they experience in nature and culture.
Curriculum Overview
The pedagogical programme of the school is informed by what Rudolf Steiner called "a well-developed knowledge of the growing child" and "an educational instinct” informed by the teacher’s ongoing study of anthroposophy and professional development.
Early Years
In our Early Years programme we work with children in the first phase of human development, which is primarily focused on building the physical body and strong healthy senses as a foundation for future learning. It is a time when the child learns best through imitation and play rather than instruction. In the first seven years of life, children are one with their surroundings.
The Waldorf Early Childhood curriculum is broad and well established, and ensures that each child is supported to unfold their potential and develop skills and attributes required for their next steps in learning. We provide plenty of time and opportunity to develop socially, emotionally and physically in a creative, secure, enabling and harmonious environment. The Waldorf Early Childhood curriculum is woven into the daily, weekly and seasonal rhythms, and combines elements of child-led play and adult-led activities.
Parent and Child Groups
Each Parent and Child Group session flows with a strong daily rhythm similar to a simplified Waldorf Kindergarten morning, with periods of breathing in and out, alternating between free movement and play, and adult led activities. The changing months and seasons are reflected in the yearly rhythm, incorporating seasonal songs and festivals in a simple way. Each session includes baking bread or scones, space and time for free play, ring time songs and rhymes, a healthy shared snack, and a story. We hope that parents and carers will find support, make connections with others and feel part of our vibrant community at Ringwood Waldorf School. For many families, Parent and Child Groups are a first introduction to Waldorf education, and the groups support a smooth transition into Kindergarten when a child is ready.
Kindergarten
A Kindergarten group feels much like a large family unit in a beautiful home, and this provides security for the young children under its wing. Children are welcomed in the morning by their caring teachers, and enter a space which they come to know and love. The simplicity, beauty, order and openness in the kindergarten can help a child to feel secure and relaxed, and allows for free movement and child initiated play. The Kindergarten day follows a consistent and rhythmic pattern, and the strong sense of routine enables the children to know what to expect and also fosters a sense of security. The day begins with a period of free creative play, and alongside this the teacher introduces an activity for each day, for example painting or baking.
The day flows with regular and repetitive activity, such as circle time, which includes songs and rhythmical verses, music and movement. The snack, prepared by adults and children is shared together around the table, where the mood is relaxed and social. The food is organic and local wherever possible. Other activities include painting, drawing, crafts and the domestic arts such as cooking, baking, cleaning and care for self and others. The tradition of oral storytelling and puppetry are a part of the morning. Very careful consideration is also given to the impact of everything in the Kindergarten environment upon all the senses of a young child. There are no ‘hard’ corners, carefully chosen colours, and all the furniture and toys are made of natural materials, as is most of the equipment like beeswax crayons and sheep's fleece. Our Kindergarten has a protected and safe natural outdoor area where children spend part of each morning. The outdoor environment enhances their learning and provides a setting for explorative play, movement, gardening and connection with the natural world around us. The festivals, seasonal and cultural, are celebrated, and often parents are invited to participate in them and other events in the Kindergarten.
Class One
At the age of six to seven the children are crossing a threshold from the first to the second seven- year period of childhood. Whereas in the first seven years, the children were primarily focused on physical growth, now they begin to open their hearts to the world around them and develop the life of feeling. It is at this time that we begin to introduce the child to a formal learning experience.
While the academic skills one learns are important, we also endeavour to cultivate a healthy moral and social sense in the child. This education of the whole child begins on the first day of school with the establishment of healthy individual and class habits. The working habits support the children’s learning efforts throughout the grades journey by creating a rhythm and structure that strengthens them. The ways of being with one another and honouring that person are also essential to forming a cohesive and unified social body in class 1.
Class 1 is truly a year of firsts – how to speak collectively when reciting a verse, how to answer a question, how to hold a pencil for writing, how to use block and stick crayons for drawing, how to care for materials, how to play with others, and much more. Those initial experiences create habits that can serve a child as he or she transitions through the classes and beyond.
The lessons of class 1 are foundational and seek to prepare the children for all that they will encounter in their academic years ahead. For example, the exploration of ‘straight and curved lines’ lays the foundation for written letters and numbers as well as geometry. Each subject is presented in main lesson ‘blocks’ where the focus is on one subject for the first part of the school day for 3 or 4 weeks. This gives the children ample time to fully engage with a subject, but also to let it rest develop so that it can be picked up and built upon later in the year. All that is done in class 1 is aimed at creating a rich learning environment in which the children’s capacities and skills may germinate and flourish.
Class Two
Between age seven and eight, the children are transitioning from a dreamy, fairy tale consciousness where the world is seen as primarily good, into a newly developing consciousness of the endless dualities of human nature. As the growing children mature, they begin to gain awareness of their own challenges and how they choose to meet them. For example, polarities such as patience vs. impulsiveness, kindness vs. selfishness, humility and arrogance are allegorically presented to the class 2 through stories. As they explore these themes in the curriculum, they begin to approach the delicate understanding of how their own personal choices define their character, and how one can grow towards goodness, beauty and truth. The class 2 child still loves to learn through games, including gross motor cooperative exercises and rhythmical movement activities, as well as fine motor exercises, poems, prose, verse and song.
Class Three
The central guiding principle of the curriculum of the class 3 is a response to the changing consciousness of the child who is turning nine. We are aware that around this time, the child experiences a shift in consciousness, a move into a new phase of the child’s inner life. The child becomes more self-conscious, more aware of his/her separation from others. There is a new sense of being cut off from the joys of early childhood; there are questions about many things, some of them quite profound; there is a growing sense of loneliness. There is a moving away from parents and friends and a moving into the world of one’s own self.
The curriculum is meant to reassure, to nurture, to help the child to move ahead with confidence through this sometimes difficult transition. Each morning the children work through exercises in recitation, singing, and rhythmic activities as a way of entering into the work of the day. The major themes for language arts study are taken from the stories of the Old Testament. We also have main lesson topics in farming, building and measuring.
The old testament stories give a picture of the joy of life in the Garden of Eden, the expulsion from the Garden and the human being’s need to work on the earth, to transform the earth for food, shelter and clothing. These stories tell of a people who wander the earth in a search for their home on the earth; they speak to the child in an unconscious but deep way: “Others have done this before me; I am not alone in this experience.”
The themes of farming and building strengthen the children’s sense of security. They know where food comes from and how it is farmed and the work than people put in to providing them with nourishment. The building main lesson gives them an understanding about the work and consideration that goes into making shelters and homes. We have links to local farms and the class may visit and take part in practical work of this kind. It is also a feature of class 3, as the children wonder where they fit into the world, that we teach them about various professions so they can see how others have found a place and a way to contribute to society. This will often involve asking visitors in to give presentations to the class.
Mathematics work is continued and expanded and a new theme of measuring is introduced. Through practical activities and stories the children learn about the early imperial measures like hands, spans, feet and cubits. Through exploring using these measurements the class 3 child can be led to see the need for standardised measurements and the evolution of the metric system. Practical measuring activities literally help the child to get a ‘measure’ of the world around them.
Class Four
Between ages nine and ten the child crosses a threshold, leaving early childhood behind and looking at the world in an increasingly awakened state. In that first experience of their separateness as manifested by critical questioning, and an often challenging voice, children can experience uncertainty and fear. An underlying theme in class 4 lessons builds on the work of class three, that of grounding the children, making them feel at home in time and space. The study of local geography and of the human being in relation to the animal kingdom and the natural world addresses the child’s newly arising inner questions: Who am I? Where am I?
Children in class 4 are learning to feel at home in space and time. They move out into the environment with growing confidence. A study of early world literature (e.g. the Norse Myths) imparts a rich understanding of the cultures from which the child’s present world springs. With their powerful will, their contentious nature and their love of adventure, the Norse gods serve as a remarkably accurate reflection of the class 4 children who study them. Underlying these extroverted and often comic tales, however, is a hint of pathos and tragedy.
The curriculum broadens to strengthen the child’s understanding of grammar and the writing of original, coherent compositions.
Grammar studies help to demonstrate the concepts of past, present, future (verb tense), and space (prepositions), helping to orient the children in time and place.The children learn to recognise different parts of speech and understand the quality that each part brings to form the whole.
In reading, the children are growing in proficiency and like to read for fun, for information, and for understanding. Students move from learning to read to reading to learn. They may refer to encyclopaedias and other sources to gather information for research reports, usually on an animal in conjunction with the Zoology Block.
Class Five
Class 5 is a year of balance, flexibility and harmony. It is often called the "Golden Age of Childhood" for it is a time when the children experience a special balance with their dawning inner life and a sense of lightness with their outward movement.
The mood of class 5 is one of finding order and grace by actively seeking new ways to improve their habits, their work, and themselves. The children take a dynamic interest in the world and they need to be inspired in an ennobled way; they thrive on goodness and beauty, seeking truth and striving to imbue their entire world with these virtues.
The Class 5 curriculum traces the evolution of human consciousness through the millennia and across the globe, especially with respect to views of life, death and the afterlife. This helps the children to understand progress and change through time and helps them begin to take responsibility for their own learning and development. It becomes evident that ancient mythologies can be seen to contain common threads through creation stories and hero tales. There are floods and rainbows, initiations and quests, and the intervention of the gods in human affairs.
Out of the study of ancient Greek mythology the children learn some of the disciplines of the ancient Greek olympians and there is often an opportunity to take part in an ‘olympic’ camp with other Waldorf schools. The goal is not only to become athletically able but to demonstrate grace and beauty in all the events as well. The study of Greece takes the children from the world of mythology to history, a transition that reflects a growing interest and awareness of the world around them.
Class Six
In Class 6 students are on the threshold of a new developmental phase. The children say goodbye to a younger stage of childhood and greet a new paradigm, a decisive moment in their development. They now take initial steps toward regulating the swings of emotion that accompany the approach of adolescence. Structure and form in Class 6 curriculum provide much-needed balance for the students’ polarities of feeling, e.g. joy and sorrow, calm and frustration, etc. The order provided in Class 6 addresses the students’ newly emerging sense of self as they turn from looking outward into the world to looking inward and becoming more conscious of the two. Students begin the journey of forging their own path in life. This requires an adept discerning capacity which will eventually, from the age of about fourteen onwards, yield a strengthened capacity for thinking. At this time, however, the students’ evolving capacity for critical thinking is in the initial stages — the dawning intellect can be noted in their insightful answers and ability to truly understand cause and effect.
A sense of lawfulness permeates the Class 6 curriculum. It is observed in such geometric constructions as the division of a circle. It is present when studying sound, light, heat and magnetism & electricity, as conclusions are drawn from observable phenomena in the study of physics. It is observed in the laws of the ancient Roman civilisation. In addition, it is seen in the upholding of the chivalrous code by the knights of the Middle Ages.
Class Seven
Class 7 is a year of exploration, awakening and discovery. The students of this age are experiencing a profound developmental stage that finds them stepping on the bridge from late childhood to young adulthood. They are rising into their self-hood finding a new relationship to their world and themselves. The student is maturing, yet not fully engaged with that maturity.
Pupils often feel strongly that they are no longer children, but neither are they fully capable of holding onto their new elusive maturity. They can feel emotionally adrift at times, and usually turn to each other for guidance and support, while the teacher can become somewhat of an afterthought but it is the curriculum that will meet them best.
In Class 7 the student's vibrant feeling life is deeply met with a rich panoramic curriculum that feeds that desire to learn. The student's doubt and resistance towards authority is reflected in the history/language arts lessons that encompass the Renaissance to the Reformation. In the Perspective Drawing block the students discover a way to bring math and art together in a beautiful way. The joy of discovery is linked to history with the study of inspiring biographies such as Joan of Arc, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Renaissance artists. Students are inspired to improve, gain confidence, and reach into the unknown like the people from the Age of Exploration whose drive and determination can seem familiar to a pupils of this age. Such vivid history grabs their attention and facilitates their study of geography. While their feeling-life is met through history and biographies, the physical-nature is met working in the sciences. With the introduction of chemistry and lessons on understanding fire and cycles of chemistry helps the students understand their own inner fire and changing selves. The science curriculum of physics is also expanded from the previous year. With hands-on study of levers and simple machines the student is connected to the physical world and anchors the concepts of observation, cause and effect. The exploration aspect also turns inward as the students learn about their own physical nature through the study of human physiology, specifically the systems and cycles of the body.
As math skills are further developed the students’ confidence and attitude towards learning are strengthened. This is also the case for language arts, where the students strengthen language skills in the creative writing block ‘Wish, Wonder, and Surprise’ while still keeping that feeling life involved. The pedagogical aspects of this block bring consciousness to complex concepts like materialism, continuity of thinking, and can include aspects of social challenges. Throughout this journey of discovery there is an attempt to raise the drive and thinking of the students to reach further in all aspects of what they do and how they act.
Class Eight
In Class Eight the pupils can justifiably celebrate the culmination of a life phase and anticipate the transition into the Upper School. This is year of projects, individual and collective that in a sense sum up all that has been learned and developed so far. As in the previous class, pupils need to engage with the world, and particularly the social world, with practical environmental or social projects that do good. The emphasis is doing something well that is of value to other people and the world, as well as showing the skills have been acquired - it is less a celebration of self and more a celebration of what is good in human society and culture. This is the true source of deep personal satisfaction and fulfilment and is particularly important in an egotistical world of celebrity. The focus in the classroom is on the world as it is today in all its political, economic, scientific and cultural complexity and conflicts - the 20th and 21st Centuries are the main theme. The balance between collective and individual qualities is important; the universal human (e.g. anatomy) and the unique biography. Class Eight needs a team of teachers who can respond to the wide range of challenges and accompany the many projects, including facilitating a review in depth of the past eight years.
Class Nine
The Year of Extremes
The Class Nine pupil is embarking on the third seven-year phase of human development. Rudolf Steiner once described the feeling life of the teenager at this stage as being “akin to having been ‘spat out’ of the spiritual world.” The emotional life can be in turmoil at this age. The individual is undergoing tremendous changes, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and existentially. Extreme moods are common. Discrepancies between intellectual ability and emotional stability can be experienced. Likewise discrepancies between ideals and action often arise. The Waldorf curriculum seeks to nurture the balanced development of the pupil by meeting the inner soul needs of the individual. Emphasis is placed on the physical aspects of the world.
The Class Nine pupil is encouraged to explore polarities: in Physics the duality of hot and cold is investigated; and the Comedy and Tragedy block is another opportunity to live into polarities. In Black and White Drawing the students practice finding the balance between the dark and the light.
Class Ten
Towards Balance
Thematically, Class Ten is the year of discovery of transitions and metamorphosis. After experiencing the extremes and polarities of Class Nine, students are prepared to recognize that unity between opposites can be realized if one is conscious of the points of transition. This recognition is made possible by the growing intellect and it is a skill that serves academic and social growth.
The pupils are developing better reasoning skills, as their ability to hold back judgment, listen and observe more carefully grows. Where a Class Nine pupil may cling to unsupported biases and be prone to snap judgments that are hard to shake, the Class Ten pupil thinking is becoming more focused and reflective. This new intellectual power helps them to find balance in the unstable emotional realm of sympathies and antipathies and better able to use logic to analyze that which can be understood through thought.
In Class Ten the pupils are able to compare, contrast information and are often eager to take up philosophical questions about the human soul and the nature of life itself. Initially, they lack the ability to maintain extended periods of concentration, but their zest for challenging authority and social norms gives them plenty of opportunities to test their budding ability to reason. Though they are able to think in abstractions and generalizations, they lack wisdom and experience that would give them the perspective needed to use these new intellectual forces in productive and transformative ways. However, over the year, as new experiences are acquired and old prejudices challenged, pupils broaden their worldview and step towards an ability to be more objective in their thoughts than ever before.
Class Eleven
By the end of Class Eleven, the pupils begin to attain objectivity in their feelings and thus increasing capacity to form judgments of taste, style and social tact. They bring mobility into their thinking, which goes beyond the logical causality of their thinking in Class Ten and can now analyse and correlate different factors within a holistic view. They are also able to think about infinite and non-sense-perceptible phenomena. The pupils have a self-directed sense of social responsibility and are able to correlate and integrate related phenomena in a more holistic understanding.
The sense of social responsibility is supported through their study of history, with its examination of personal, community, and national, responsibility and power. The Botany Main Lesson leads students to an understanding of the complex and sophisticated inter-relationships within the plant world, and to see it as a whole, rather than myriad parts. Student progress is evaluated by classroom observation, papers, Main Lesson books, quizzes and tests.
Class Twelve
The Power of Synthesis
Class Twelve is the culmination of all the experience the pupils have gained in a Waldorf School. At this point in the pupils’ development, they are able to grasp large conceptual ideas. In many ways, we give the pupils a picture of different subjects as a whole experience by exploring the ways in which disparate parts make up the whole. For example, in Zoology, the pupils look at the parts of various organisms and how they make up the whole of the individual animal, and also how the individual animal is part of its own ecological environment, which in turn is part of a worldwide system.
Pupils experience a variety of Main Lesson classes in which they are expected to produce a book or project at the end showing their grasp of the content and concepts presented. Pupils also have skill classes in essential subjects (in Waldorf education this includes the arts), as well as electives to augment individual interests. Quizzes, tests and papers may be forms of assessments for all of these classes depending on the individual teacher. Pupils receive final grades for these classes that are sent home half-yearly and added to their final transcripts.