Canterbury Christ Church University and SWSF collaboration: Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and a new Masters Programme.

SWSF has been working closely with Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) on two exciting new projects: the development of a route by which experienced Steiner Waldorf teachers can gain Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and also the launch of a new Masters programme leading to MA Education (Steiner Waldorf).

There are many talented and experienced teachers in our schools whose status as qualified teachers has never been fully recognised. We believe that appropriate acknowledgement of professional status should not be denied to colleagues simply because they have learned and applied their skills outside the maintained sector. This belief is shared by colleagues at CCCU and also by the Training Development Agency, (TDA), the government body responsible for teacher education.

Many of our teachers would welcome the opportunity to engage as equals with state teachers, to have their own practice better understood and to learn from and contribute to current `mainstream` practice. Many see the acquisition of QTS as one way of coming closer to realising these aims.

We are delighted to report that the first cohort of teachers is now being signed up to the pilot scheme.

This development is not only significant for the professional development of individual teachers: whilst independent schools and the newly established Free Schools are able to employ teachers without QTS, there is a concern shared by many in the sector that QTS may one day be a requirement for staff in all schools, regardless of funding.

The proposed Masters is expected to begin at Easter 2012. It will be a three year programme and will provide an opportunity to expose Steiner Waldorf theory and practice to appropriate scrutiny in a research based environment. In addition to attracting those currently engaged in Steiner education it is expected to be of interest to educationalists from a wide range of back grounds both in the UK and abroad.

If you would like to be kept updated on either the QTS or the Masters programme please contact: office@steinerwaldorf.org

SWSF RESPONSE TO DAME CLAIRE TICKELL’S REVIEW OF THE EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION STAGE

1st April 2011.
The Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship would like to thank Dame Claire Tickell, her team and her advisors for taking account of the issues brought by the SWSF in her considered review of the EYFS. We look forward to the Government’s positive response to this review.
We welcome her recommendations for a slimmed down and less bureaucratic curriculum with fewer Early Learning Goals and the focus on the three prime areas as the foundations for healthy development of life long skills... read more in this pdf.

Approching Steiner - Article by Phoebe Doyle

"Phoebe Doyle takes an historical, philosophical and practical look at Steiner education, an approach that, almost 100 years since the first school opened, still sparks inspiration, debate and controversy."
Eye Magazine December 2010

View the full article "Approaching Steiner" - download the pdf here. (Approaching-Steiner-20101122.pdf 1861kb).

The Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship welcomes the review of the Early Years Foundation Stage

The Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship welcomes the review of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

Following the announcement on Tuesday 6th July that there will be a review of the Early Years’ Foundation Stage, the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship is looking forward to contributing to it. As a reply to the governments intended focus on ‘getting children ready for education’, we will respond on the importance of regarding the early years as a distinct and important phase of a child’s life, rather than simply a pre-curser to school.
We support the themes and principles of the EYFS, and hope it will continue to provide a play-based approach to children’s learning and development. However, we have found that the statutory nature of the Assessment regulations and Learning and Development requirements have conflicted with many of the well established principles of Steiner early childhood education. This has resulted in a complicated and bureaucratic exemptions process for Steiner teachers and parents. Further, the requirement to assess against the numerous points in the EYFS profile at age 5 holds no value as our children generally remain in the kindergarten until their seventh year when they begin their first introduction to formal learning, in line with many other countries with highly successful education systems throughout the world.

As our schools have to apply for the second round of exemptions in 2011, we hope that a mechanism can be put in place to allow for the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship to make a collective application on behalf of all our settings. We also hope that issues related to the new-style funding formula will be resolved in a way that allows practitioners to continue their vital work for young children.

Young musician hopes to bring aid to Africa

Silas Beardslee had graduated from High Mowing School and was ready to enroll as a theater major at The University of New Hampshire four years ago. Instead, he took a detour and went to the college of life — in Zimbabwe.
by By NICOLE S. COLSON, Sentinel Staff, Thursday June 03 2010 - see original article here.

Beardslee, 21, of Keene, performs Friday at The Starving Artist in Keene to raise money for a project he envisioned during that 2006 trip to Africa.

That summer, he attended a camp in northern New Hampshire where a man from Zimbabwe was sponsored to work for the season. “We had an incredible connection I couldn’t put words to,” Beardslee said of Balance Chibangwa, who later became like a brother to him. “He described his triumphs and struggles, the landscape and the people (of Zimbabwe),” Beardslee said. “He told me his life story and I told him mine.” Chibangwa invited Beardslee to stay with him in Zimbabwe. “I saw it as an incredible opportunity,” he said.

He deferred his college application and saved up some money, and was able to visit Zimbabwe for four months from December of 2006 to March of 2007. Chibangwa was getting married in December, and asked Beardslee if he’d be his best man. Of course, he accepted.

“It made me realize I wasn’t ready for school,” he said of his experience in Zimbabwe.

Although Beardslee said he still is in love with the arts and has a far-off vision of becoming a drama teacher, his experience in Zimbabwe made him realize

there was much more to what he was wishing for.

Beardslee now has a house in the rural village of Rimbi (population 3,000) in Zimbabwe, a brick and plaster thatched roof, one-room circular hut. He built it next to Chibangwa’s small three-room house. He learned the native language, and helped his friend run his small grocery store in town and with his wedding preparations. “I had no agenda other than to immerse myself as much as possible in the people and the culture.” He was even given a Shona name by the village chief.

Beardslee noticed early on there are a lot of starving people in Rimbi, but it’s not because there’s not enough food to go around. Because the people of Zimbabwe have endured such hardship, including the HIV/AIDS epidemic, people tend to think about their own families first and foremost. Because so many families are affected by the disease, often there is only one parent left to farm land and feed the family.

“Working together isn’t really a thought,” he said. “It takes a lot of time and attention whereas most time and attention is focused on getting meals for the family.” There is also a lack of work in Zimbabwe, which means many leave to find jobs and cannot farm their own land.

Beardslee and Chibangwa came up with the idea to start a community farming project wherein people of Rimbi could farm shared land and share the harvest from that land.

Beardslee said he left Zimbabwe a totally changed person with full knowledge he’d return. He didn’t feel ready to take the project on then. Instead, he travelled for two years, including to Sweden, where he led a youth initiative project that focused on social change. The connections he made there and the skills he learned from his studies, he said, gave him the tools and ideas to put his vision for the Rimbi Farming Project into motion.

He went back to Zimbabwe last year for a five-week internship, during which he asked villagers in Rimbi what they thought of the idea for the farm. They were very receptive. The farm will be biodynamic — a method of holistic organic farming created by the founder of Waldorf education. Beardslee attended the Monadnock Waldorf School in Keene.

The project is still in its visioning stage; in the meantime, Beardslee formed a non-profit organization to accept donations. He hopes to raise $30,000. So far, he has been using his musical talents toward that goal. He began playing guitar two-and-a-half years ago because he had written poetry about his first trip to Zimbabwe and he wanted to put it to music. He has performed a few shows in the area (there is one tonight in Jaffrey also) and he plans to do more.

No matter how much money he raises, he will go back to Zimbabwe in October to live and get the project off the ground. The village chief donated five hectares (equal to about two-and-a-half acres) of land villagers will be able to farm, and the money raised will go toward tools and the building of a barn. The focus crops will be maize (corn), a food staple in Zimbabwe; watermelon, squash and pumpkin.

Sadly, Chibangwa died early this year as a result of injuries he sustained in a car accident. Although Beardslee said he is still processing his friend’s death, it only fuelled him to continue. “This incredible human being would not want me to stop the work he shared the vision of,” he said.