First published in JUNO Magazine, Issue 44, Summer 2016
https://www.junomagazine.com/
Invalid download ID.

see article here

See website here
Children’s Charter Sign-up – SAVE CHILDHOOD MOVEMENT

see story here
 

 February 18th 2016
IONA STEINER SCHOOL ‘OUTSTANDING’ SAY INSPECTORS
Inspectors have praised The Iona School in Nottingham, after it was judged to be ‘outstanding’ in all five categories.
The visit by the School Inspection Service (SIS), from February 2-4, found teaching and the curriculum to be outstanding; a strong culture of school self-evaluation and improvement; pastoral care to be excellent.
The Iona School is part of the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship (SWSF); it is the first Steiner school to be judged outstanding in all categories under the new Common Inspection Framework.
Fiona Stuart, school manager, said: “We are delighted with the findings of the SIS inspectors; at Iona School, our ethos is to give the children self confidence, love of learning, an ability to work with others and enduring and practical skills. This report is a great endorsement of our pupils’ hard work and the great support they receive from staff, trustees and parents.”
Other SIS observations included:

“School leaders are visionary”
“Leadership and management are outstanding”
“Pupils are rightly appreciative of the inspirational teaching they receive”
“A number of pupils said that they missed school during school holidays and were delighted when it was time to return”

Kevin Avison, executive officer of the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship (SWSF) said: “The inspectors’ findings are a testament to everyone involved at Iona Steiner School and are confirmation that the Steiner approach to education produces well-rounded pupils, a safe environment and supportive community.”
Invalid download ID.
ENDS
For more information, contact Jon Perks or Leila Taleb at Liquid – jon@wereliquid.com or Leila@weareliquid.com
0121 285 3760
 
Editors’ notes
 
Iona Steiner School
The Iona School is founded on the educational ideas and spiritual world-view of the philosopher and educator, Rudolf Steiner (1861 – 1925).
The first school based on Rudolf Steiner’s indications was founded in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919. This was in response to a request to provide education for children of the workers of the Waldorf Astoria cigarette factory – hence the name Steiner Waldorf. The Iona School was founded in Nottingham in 1985. After spending its first year in temporary accommodation, the school moved to its present site. The school has grown and developed over the years and is a member of the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship (SWSF).
 
steinerwaldorf.org

see article here
First published in the Autumn 2015 issue of JUNO, Issue 41
www.junomagazine.com

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]See Obituary here

Canterbury Steiner School Class 11 students (16 years old) are staging a charity benefit concert on Friday 6th November 2015 in the schools theatre.
The acts are drawn from the schools own pupils and teachers as well as local musicians. All proceeds will go to the Catching Lives charity.
The youngsters wanted to support a local charity and Catching Lives does valuable work with those who are affected by homelessness.
“We are a school that prides itself on nurturing a caring spirit in our pupils”, commented Mr Ewout Van-Manen School Leader, “Our students really want to contribute to society and this concert is real evidence of that”.
Doors open at 6:45 for 7pm start and all are welcome.
***********************************END************************
Press Contact: Martyn Nicholls
Mobile: 07583 015373
Tel: 01227 738285
Email: pr@canterburysteiner.co.uk
Canterbury Steiner School, Garlinge Green, Chartham, Canterbury, Kent. CT4 5RU
 
Further Information
Canterbury Steiner School, founded in 1976 and set in the beautiful Kent downs, is an independent co-educational school for children aged (3 to 16). We believe that childhood is the most important time of our lives. The experiences, feelings and education of our formative years will greatly colour and shape the adults we go on to become and the part we play in the world.
The proven and established Steiner Waldorf approach, one of the fastest growing educational systems in the world, is based on the simple but profound insight that each child is unique and that they learn in different ways at different stages of their development.
For forty years Canterbury has focused on enhancing each individual child’s strengths with a rich, creative curriculum that carefully meets the growing child’s developmental needs and engenders a passion for lifelong learning. Our primary task is to provide an environment and education that will allow our pupils to become creative, responsible and confident adults who are more than equipped to face the many challenges of life.
 

see Independent Schools Article here
 

Congratulations to Jago Brett and Theo Macdonald  (Class 10) who won an national computer coding competition organised by Young Rewired State.  They took part in a week long “Coding Camp” earlier in the summer and, with 2 other Bristol boys, designed and coded an app to help people follow their favourite bands and meet up with other fans at different festivals.  (Possibly inspired by spending the previous weekend getting extremely wet at WOMAD!) At the end of the week 160 teams from across the country came together at Birmingham University to present their work for judgement  by industry and academic leaders.   The Bristol team won the award for Best Written Code, receiving £70 each of computer equipment and the chance to develop their app for sale.  Well done Theo and Jago!

see article here

Congratulations to Kings Langley student who is amongst the winners of Physicist of the Year. see news item here

Our innovative Trainee Teacher Scheme won us an Education Business Award yesterday. Ruth Beachim and Ben Arnold received the award at a prestigious ceremony in London. We were one of three schools shortlisted in the UK and received praise for our forward thinking approach to recruitment and specifically Teacher Training. Photos and more information will be posted on the website soon!
see press coverage here

See pictures here

York Class 4 Teacher, Fiona Dudley, has won a Silver Plato Award for ‘Teacher of the Year in a Primary School’.
Fiona is now invited to the House of Commons to attend a celebratory tea hosted by Alok Sharma MP.  This event will be held on Thursday 2nd July from 4 pm.
Fiona will also join fellow Silver Award winners at the UK final of the Teaching Awards to be held at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on 18th October, where 10 Silver Award winners will receive a Gold Plato Award. The ceremony, titled “Britain’s Classroom Heroes”, will be filmed and broadcast by the BBC as a showcase of excellence in education.
Fiona’s achievement reflects the diversity and quality of education provision within York. Our school is also a true community school, established by parents over 30 years ago and committed to offering Steiner education to all those who wish it for their children

Elmfield Shortlisted Again!
Elmfield has been shortlisted for another national education award, for the fifth time in three years. This time, we were shortlisted for the 2015 Education Business Awards.  The judges were extremely impressed with our unique Trainee Teacher Scheme.  Since 2013, we’ve been searching for a select few individuals who we think show huge potential to become inspiring Waldorf teachers. After shortlisting and several days of assessments, we selected 3 out of over 100 hopefuls and we’re now sponsoring their Waldorf teacher training.   We are generating a supply of talented Steiner teachers.
We were also nominated for most improved independent school. Watch this space…

By Somerset Standard  |  Posted: May 08, 2015
Residents living in Longleat Court apartments, in Park Road, Frome were invited to a tea party by the Steiner Academy to say a big thank you for their patience during the construction of the new school.
The academy said it had been a trying time for the 48 residents who live opposite the former Victoria Hospital site since construction began.
Kier Construction project managers Spencer Cox and Rob James showed the visitors the renovated ground floor of Victoria House and the new Craft Centre and Eurythmy Hall, before leading them into the Main Hall for a cream tea.
The school’s Principal, Trevor Mepham, gave a brief talk, thanking the residents for their forbearance.
Development manager of Longleat Court, Jane Thorp, said: “It is great to see the wonderful buildings that have emerged from the site over the past 18 months. We wish the staff and students a successful and enjoyable time in their new home and look forward to continued links with the school as it grows.”

Invalid download ID.

Taste the Teeming Earth
The journey of Steiner Academy Hereford’s Justice Team as runners-up in the National Final of the Citizenship Foundation’s Bar Mock Trial Competition, Edinburgh, March 2015.  
“There is a commerce between inner and outer, between brightness and shadow, between the world and those who think about the world. Is it not a mystery? The parts cohere, they come together like petals of a flower, yet they also send their tongues outward to feel and taste the teeming earth. Did you want classic columns and predictable pediments?”
Lines from “Open the doors” by Ewin Morgan, Scots Makar, written for the Opening of the Scottish Parliament, 2004.
As the Justice Team journeyed to Edinburgh at the end of March it was perhaps unforeseen moments that framed the students’ experience the most. The ‘nooks and niches’ of Scots Makar Edwin Morgan’s declamation to the Scottish Parliament in 2004 echoed these unforeseen moments, these unusual treasures. Our erudite guide to Holyrood had explained the vision of its architecture as leaves unfolding from a branch, boats atop a wave. Having arrived in Edinburgh a day before the competition, and not due at the Central Library for a final practice until that afternoon, the team ventured down Cowgate rather than the Royal Mile on their way to Parliament. Morgan had described that journey as going towards the ‘midst of things, not set up on a hill with your nose in the air.’ And such a journey reflected the strange social ecology of the Steiner team, no head boy or girl, no uniform, no hundreds of students from which to draw.
The team had participated in the Magistrates Court Mock Trial competition last year, making it only to the regional heats. They had now won through to the national final of the Bar Mock Trial competition back in November 2014 by winning the regional heat at Queen Elisabeth Courts in Birmingham. Barrister Emma Edhem had broadened the team’s perspectives at that point by tracing a path from criminal law to international law and the dance of nations it tended. Such broadening of perspective is the central dynamic of this competition, amidst the minutiae of legal wrangling and the hierarchies of league rankings. Teamwork, public speaking, analysis. All of the judges in Edinburgh offered this richness of experience in their presence, their conducting of business, and their summings up. To hear the wisdom of Leveson, Kerrigan, McConnachie, and Rae in person was perhaps one of the most potent niches of the team’s days in Edinburgh.
Lord Justice Leveson was surprised to hear that the team hailed from a small, single stream school, and that the students were rising 15s. Most of the teams from the other 186 schools who had entered the competition were rising 17s and 18s. Throughout the competition there was both high drama and serious legal wrestling with issues and evidence. In the grand final itself, the principal witness’s credibility was brought into question due to the humble nature surrounding the circumstances of their birth, (they were raised in a woodland). Our collective understanding of justice clearly has some way to go if the word of a dweller automatically holds more credibility in a court of law. Maybe it is no accident that this team had also been drawn to the recent lecture in Hereford by the international barrister Polly Higgins. In her campaign for instituting ecocide as a 5th crime against peace, she cites the possession of land as one of the principal wrong turns of our civilization in its capacity to fulfill a meaningful role as stewards of the Earth.
Steiner Academy Herford’s Justice Team with (L-R): Robert “Judge” Rinder, Rt Hon Lord Justice Leveson, The Hon Lady Rae, and Mr Mark Mulholland QC.
The choice of ITVs Judge Rinder to present the prizes was a great opportunity to expand the appeal of the competition, but may also have been a signal that theatricality was a high value commodity on the day. It is also no accident that a reduced exposure to television within the wider community of a Steiner school meant that the team itself was more aware of Lord Justice Leveson. He took time with the Hereford students to congratulate them on the tenor of their participation and the sophistication of their advocacy, urging Alex Murdock and Louie Ablett, the advocates he saw in the final, to pursue legal careers.
As finalists of this UK competition, the Steiner team are eligible for the Empire Mock Trial world championship in New York in October, but such a prospect is beyond the financial prospects of a rural state school, as well as the challenges of undertaking such a journey within the final GCSE year of the class. But to journey to the seat of the UN . . . .  to engage with international contenders . . . and to represent Hereford on a global stage . . . I’m sure the students would enjoy any attempts at persuasion. It may be that it is within a later stage of their education that student competitions at the International Courts in Europe enable their burgeoning visions for ecology, social justice and true international security, to then bear fruit.  And again, in the words of Edwin Morgan, that bold mandate from the teeming earth might yet speak to them: “Don’t let your work and hope be other than great.”
Paul Hougham
March 2015
 
https://eradicatingecocide.com/
https://www.citizenshipfoundation.org.uk/
https://www.steinerwaldorf.org/
https://empiremocktrial.org/new-york
 
 

see design here
Designed by Julie Ruse, Michael Hall School