Welcome to New Staff

Fran Crichton – Willow Kindergarten Teacher

This September, I made a move across the playground from my work as Little Kindergarten and Parent and Child Group Leader in Ash Kindergarten to become Kindergarten Teacher in Willow. Accompanying me were the eight children I‘d had the pleasure of being with for the past year, and staying behind was Stephanie, my patient companion in work for the previous five years. 

There to greet us on the other side were Leanne and the children from Carole’s Kindergarten. The situation was new for all of us but by half term we were getting to know each other and by Christmas were definitely one group.

As for myself, my family and I discovered Steiner education many years ago when we moved, by chance, next door to the German teacher of a newly-started Steiner school in the heart of rural West Wales. My own four children all began their education at Nant-y-Cwm, and I was involved there as a parent for over twenty years. During this time I took part in a Steiner Teacher training course, which was run at the school, and I taught for two years. The arrival of my “second family”, two daughters after having had two sons, took me into Early Years, running first Parent and Child Groups and then a playgroup. Ten years ago I began my work as Kindergarten Teacher at Nant-y-Cwm and during this time did the Steiner Waldorf Early Years training at Plymouth University.

I then moved to join Ringwood Waldorf School with my youngest daughter, who is now just about to leave home to study music at university, and was lucky enough to find the pioneer Upper School class and stay until Class 11. 

My biggest joy during all these years has come from being in nature and the way I love to experience this most is through walking. Last summer, I walked in Lapland, a hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, which for me was both a challenge and a great pleasure. It was also the fulfilling of something I had told myself I would do twenty years ago!

I feel fortunate to be able to translate this love of nature in to my work in the kindergarten and to “follow nature through the seasons”. I feel continually stimulated and enriched by this experience and even more so in being able to share it with the children.