Thursday, September 22, 2005

Teacher Talk

Roxana Bibi, a class teacher at St Paul's Steiner School in London has been interviewed by Emily Elias for the Independent, 08 September 2005

Download the article here

Friday, July 08, 2005

Media

State schools 'could learn from Steiner principles' Polly Curtis, education correspondentThursday June 30, 2005

Ministers should consider adopting Steiner school principles of putting pupils' spiritual and social awareness ahead of test results, a government-backed study recommended today.
The Steiner schools movement was started by Rudolph Steiner, an Austrian educationalist, who a century ago developed a curriculum that advocates developing pupils' spirituality and sense of social justice to help them learn.
There are 23 independent Steiner schools in the UK, charging between £1,000 and £4,000 a term. Most other European countries have Steiner state schools. Last month, the government announced it was conducting a feasibility study to see whether it could set up a state-funded Steiner school, and today's report, based on research at 21 of the schools, will fuel speculation that the government is considering introducing more of them.
Today it emerged that the government is to fund the introduction of Montessori teaching at a Manchester primary school. Although often compared with Steiner schools, Montessori schools differ in that they do not follow a strict curriculum, instead they give pupils total control over their education, deciding the pace at which they learn and advocating learning through play.
Philip Woods, of the University of West of England, who led today's research, said Steiner schools were successful in teaching foreign languages at an early age, getting pupils enthusiastic about learning and involving them in choosing what they wanted to learn about.
"We also found that the emphasis given to the non-hierarchical, collegial form of running schools, offers a contrast to current practice in the maintained sector and may prove relevant for mainstream schools," he said.
Pupils at Steiner schools take GCSEs and A-levels, but they do not sit other national tests, such as Sats, which have been widely criticised by teachers for restricting the curriculum in mainstream schools.
But the report also highlighted the problems children have in adjusting when they move between Steiner and non-Steiner schools and points out that while state schools could learn a lot from Steiner schools, the independent schools could also learn from government-run schools.
Prof Woods said: "We see a great potential benefit from mutual dialogue and professional interaction between Steiner and mainstream educators. As well as the good practices we have identified from Steiner schools there are also areas in which Steiner schools could benefit from maintained sector practices such as management skills, organisational and administrative efficiency, classroom management, working with older secondary school children and record-keeping and assessment."
For Steiner schools to be state-funded the government would have to bend the rules to allow them to opt out of the national curriculum. But with the government increasingly encouraging schools to take more control over how they are run and what they teach, and with moves towards giving parents more choice of different kinds of schools, the report suggests ministers might support such a move.
The independent report was commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills, which today said it was considering its findings. A DfES spokesman said: "The government is committed to widening diversity in education provision in the interests of raising standards and offering parents a choice of schools for their child."
The DfES has been working with the Steiner fellowship of schools since 2001 to discuss how the schools could be introduced into the state system.

Learning from Experience Article

Steiner schools: Learning from experience
Steiner school pupils get a stress-free education - they're not even taught to read until they're seven. Now, the Government is set to turn one into an Academy. Hilary Wilce reports
Published: 07 July 2005 Independent
Steiner schools: Learning from experience

A field in Herefordshire could become the birthplace of one of the most radical departures our school system has seen. Right now, it is just buttercups and cow parsley, but if current plans stay on track, this field will soon be home to the first state-funded Steiner school in Britain.
Last week, we reported that the Government was making common cause with the privately funded Montessori schools movement to rescue a struggling state primary school in Manchester. Today, we can reveal that it is getting into bed with the private Steiner movement. That means the Government that gave us curriculum tests and league tables will be supporting a school where tests and exams are almost non-existent, and where play and dance are seen as every bit as important as formal classroom learning.
And if - as Steiner supporters hope - this coming together of the two systems allows some of these ideas to filter into mainstream schools, the children of our noisy, socially fractured world could benefit immeasurably. "The Steiner curriculum is a therapeutic curriculum," stresses Sylvie Sklan, development director of the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship. "It is perfect for disadvantaged children. It should be available in the inner cities."
"There is definitely scope for two-way learning," says Philip Woods, professor of education at the University of the West of England, who has just completed a major study on Steiner schooling, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills. "And learning across boundaries is a significant theme of Government policy."

There are 31 Steiner schools in the UK and Ireland, but they have never had any public money, unlike their counterparts in other European countries. In fact, they exist on the margins of educational consciousness - something, people tend to think, to do with tree-hugging.
In fact, the framework of Steiner schools is closely prescribed, and built on the view that a child's creative, spiritual and moral dimensions need as much attention as their intellectual ones. "When people used to say to my mother: 'Aren't those the schools where children do what they like?'," says teacher Alison Gilbert, "she used to say: 'No, they're the schools where children like what they do.'"
Even so, it is ground-breaking that the Government has decided to expand its drive towards school diversity - mainly used to encompass Moslem and church schools - to embrace such a different educational philosophy, and it's no surprise to find it has not been easy.
The idea has been kicking around for six years. Estelle Morris, when she was Education Secretary, and Andrew Adonis, now an education minister, have pushed for it to happen, but attempts to set up a voluntary-aided school in London foundered, and three years ago it was decided to go down a different route.
Now, plans are being worked out to make the Hereford Waldorf School in Much Dewchurch, currently housed in a converted barn, a new, all-in Academy taking about 300 pupils aged five to 16. But there are tricky issues to negotiate. Steiner teachers want to protect their ideas; the Government needs its schools to be accountable.

So far it has been agreed that the Steiner curriculum will not be compromised, provided that pupils are taught English, maths and science - no problem, since the Herefordshire pupils already take public exams in these subjects. The Government has accepted that Key Stage 1 tests are irrelevant to the Steiner curriculum, and that any Key Stage 2 testing would have to be flexible, and the results not for publication. There will be no selection on ability, admissions will be based on parents' commitment to the philosophy, and the role of a head, as a financial manager, will have to be worked out, as Steiner schools are run as teacher democracies.
At the school, Steiner-qualified teachers will be expected to work towards graduate status if they do not have a degree, but - to the annoyance of the teachers unions - qualified teacher status is seen as a national curriculum-based qualification and inappropriate. Computers will not be used in the lower school, as the Steiner philosophy is that screen images hinder the development of thought and imagination, and the school will be free to decide how to use them in its upper school, provided that pupils become competent at ICT.

The school will be sponsored by the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, and sponsorship money - 10 per cent of capital costs - will come from a European software house and a private donor.
And it looks as if local parents could be clamouring to get their children into the place. Following the news that there could, potentially, be government funding for the school, this year's open day attracted many more visitors than usual, and it is likely that they would have been impressed by the pupils' calm and confidence, and their powers of concentration.
This, teachers make clear, is because they are brought up from the beginning in Steiner ways. In the kindergarten they play with simple, unfinished wooden toys rather than bright plastic ones, to allow their imaginations to develop. "People say, 'don't they get bored?'" says teacher Karen Fielding. "And we say, 'No, because every day it's something different.'"
When pupils move up a class, they stay with the same teacher, right to the end of their schooling. This means personal differences have to be worked through. It can be hard, acknowledges teacher David Donaldson, but you get to work at relationships at a very deep level.

The school day begins with an important settling-in session, where children work off physical energies and draw together in common purpose. Younger children sing and play games with bean bags; older ones might do something outside, then play the recorder and recite "the verse" together - a religious-sounding affirmation of the spirit of life.
This is followed by a two-hour "main lesson", where students follow one subject for three weeks, exploring it in depth and from all angles before moving on to something else. The afternoons are given over to arts and crafts activities.

The lessons are based on whole-class learning, with the teacher first speaking about something, before the class moves on to talking about it, writing about it, and illustrating what they have written.

There is an old-fashioned, courtly quality to these classes, with children sitting at wooden desks, and a high standard of work - although it helps that class numbers are small. A class of 14-year-olds is studying The Tempest, and discussing the nature of Caliban. He is, they volunteer, "a deformed human being" or "half-devil, half-witch", and argue about whether they should feel sorry for him.
Upstairs, teacher Karin Hines is teaching history of art to the top class of 15-year-olds, who have just finished a three-week module on physics. These students do GCSEs in English literature, language and in maths, and Open College Network qualifications in crafts and sciences, but are not rattled by exams. "The local sixth form college loves to have them," she says. "They say they're mature, interested, articulate and ask lots of questions.
"You work twice as hard for half the pay here. But where else could I teach history of art in the morning and do blacksmithing in the afternoon, with a bit of chemistry thrown in as well?"
Ruth Hardy, 15, and Leila Terrett, 16, are adamant that they would send their own children to Steiner schools. They love the family atmosphere and the way that Steiner children are so creative. Most of them cook, they say, and many make their own clothes, and tend to be practical.

There are things that are weird to outside eyes. The curriculum goes for depth, not breadth, and the laboratory and art room facilities are pitiful. There are few books and no computers. Children learn to write using huge pencils, and to paint using huge brushes. The art is stunning, but closely controlled, with children instructed how to proceed through the colour spectrum. There is basket-weaving, and also a ritualised dance form called eurythmy.
Rudolf Steiner founded his first school back in 1919 for the children of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory workers, but he understood that rhythmic, coordinated physical exercise helps the brain, and that the development of the imagination is central to a good education. He knew children needed room to breathe, and had to come to things when they were ready for them, and he understood the importance of helping them to develop as whole people. He also pre-empted Jamie Oliver by almost a century, pointing out the need to feed children good, wholesome food.

There are 900 Steiner schools worldwide. They work successfully in South African townships and Eastern European refugee camps, as well as in wealthy parts of America and our own Surrey commuter belt. Gilbert says: "It all comes out of how you work with your children - how you work with them in your mind while you're preparing lessons, how you hold them in your heart. It's based on the notion that the child is a spiritual being, and that you are caring for something precious."

There is a shortage of Steiner school teachers in the UK. If you would like to know more about the different pathways to becoming one, please phone the Hereford Waldorf school on 01981 540221, or view training options at www.steinerwaldorf.org.uk/training.htm
What is Steiner education about?

1. Co-educational, comprehensive schools, run co-operatively by teachers, which follow an internationally recognised curriculum, without early specialisation
2. A balance of artistic, practical and intellectual teaching, plus an emphasis on social skills and spiritual values
3. Children have the same class teacher from seven to 14. They do two foreign languages from the age of six. Mental arithmetic happens daily. Calculators and computers are banned until children are older. Whole-class teaching is the norm.
4. Formative assessment rather than testing. GCSEs and A-levels can be taken alongside the full curriculum, usually a year later.

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Research Project

First comprehensive report on English Steiner schools published

A unique study, the first comprehensive mapping of Steiner School Education in England, conducted by researchers at the University of the West of England on behalf of the DfES, will be published on 30 June 2005.

This wide-ranging study covers leadership, curriculum, teaching style and methods, educational philosophy, the approach to special educational needs and national tests as well as links with parents and staffing.

Education in Steiner schools is based on the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, known as anthroposophy, and the schools provide an alternative approach to mainstream education in the UK and many other countries. The schools have distinctive practices which emphasise the development of the whole child and in particular the spiritual aspects of their development.

In England there are 23 Steiner schools and the research covered 21 of these - 15 were visited and a number of case studies carried out, as well as a survey of Steiner teachers and a review of existing research studies. The study aimed to identify good practice, find differences and common ground with mainstream education, and to find out how the two sectors might learn from each other.

Current education policy is to broaden choice for parents through diversity of provision as well as promoting the freedom for schools to excel through innovation, collaboration and sharing. The report also makes recommendations should Steiner schools enter the maintained sector.

Professor Philip Woods who led the research says the report identified a number of strengths in Steiner schools, "There was a striking consistency between the schools, despite a large variation in the size and resources available. Overall we found areas of good practice such as the early introduction and approach to modern foreign languages, development of speaking and listening through oral work and the combination of class and subject teaching for younger children. In addition the development of good pace in lessons through an emphasis on rhythm, the emphasis on child development in guiding the curriculum, and Steiner schools' approach to art and creativity were all distinctive strengths. We also found that the emphasis given to teachers reflective activity and heightened awareness as well as the non-hierarchical, collegial form of running schools, offers a contrast to current practice in the maintained sector and may prove relevant for mainstream schools."

While the report cautions about the difficulties of transferring practices from schools with differing philosophies, it says there is considerable scope for many aspects of the good practice of Steiner schools to inform what goes on in state schools, and vice versa, and it suggests LEAs, government and Steiner schools should promote opportunities for professional dialogue between the two sectors.

Professor Woods says, "We see a great potential benefit from mutual dialogue and professional interaction between Steiner and mainstream educators. As well as the good practices we have identified from Steiner schools there are also areas in which Steiner schools could benefit from maintained sector practices such as management skills, organisational and administrative efficiency, classroom management, working with older secondary school children and record keeping and assessment."

The report also identifies the challenges facing Steiner schools, if they were to become part of the state-funded sector and offers a series of recommendations to meet these challenges, "Governments, LEAs and Steiner Schools need to promote a wider understanding of the philosophy behind the schools, and there needs to be a greater understanding amongst assessment bodies of the ways in which Steiner schools assess progress and facilitate pupils' learning. We also recommend that, if Steiner schools became part of the state sector, the Government would need to enable Steiner schools to opt out of the National Curriculum. There would also be challenges to be met in the way the schools are managed and the training of teachers."

The report recommends further research into the relative effectiveness of Steiner and mainstream school practices to strengthen the evidence base of Steiner schools.


Editor's notes

The research team are: Professor Philip Woods, Dr Glenys Woods and Dr Martin Ashley from the Faculty of Education, at the University of the West of England.

Copies of the full report, 'Steiner Schools In England' (RR645) - priced £4.95 - are available by writing to DfES Publications, PO Box 5050, Sherwood Park, Annesley, Nottingham NG15 0DJ.

Cheques should be made payable to "DfES Priced Publications".

Copies of this Research Brief (RB645) are available free of charge from the above address (tel: 0845 60 222 60). Research Briefs and Research Reports can also be accessed at www.dfes.gov.uk/research/

Further information about this research can be obtained from Elif Aksit, 6D, DfES, Sanctuary Buildings, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BT.

E-mail: elif.aksit@dfes.gsi.gov.uk

The views expressed in the report are the authors' and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department for Education and Skills.


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