Brighton Steiner School Open Day March 14th

The Brighton Steiner School are holding a truly experiential Open Day on March 14th.  Lots of people labour under misconceptions about Steiner Education so here’s a chance to go and find out for yourself.  Parents can get hands-on and take part in lessons themselves, alongside their kids if they’re coming along.  There are different programmes running for Early Years, Main School and Upper School and a whole host of activities, performances and talks to go to.  Staff, parents and kids are on hand to answer any burning questions and there’s a student-run cafe for non-stop refreshment.  Drop in to whichever sessions you fancy on the Brighton Steiner School Open Day Programme.  Programme runs from 2-5pm then repeats 5-8pm so choose a slot that suits your family.  More info on Flyer 

Campaign against compulsory learning goals

There are a number of websites worth visiting on the campaign for exemption from the Government’s proposed learning and development goals.   http://www.savesteinerschools.org/ has up to the minute information in relation to Steiner schools, the main thrust of the OpenEYE campaign is here http://openeyecampaign.wordpress.com/about/ and the petition to the Government to reconsider is at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/OpenEYE/.  Please do go on and sign if you are in sympathy with the campaign.  I’m also uploading a word file with an outline of what’s going on.  OpenEYE campaign background info  Thanks to all of those who have sent info in my direction to pass on.

Government should learn from Steiner and home schoolers

This according to a recent article in the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/08/schools.education which says that an increase in testing and pressure to start kids in school as early as four years old are driving families away from mainstream education.  A little while ago I was in the audience for a Teachers TV programme The Big Question that discussed the Cambridge review of schooling, cited in this article.  The panel and audience represented all aspects of education: teachers, Government spokespersons, parents, authors, ‘alternatives’, mainstream… yet there was a broad swathe of agreement of the need to ease the pressure, particularly on the youngest children in schools.  A teachers’ union representative also made the interesting point that aggressive testing strategies have had a negative effect of teaching staff as well as pupils, with an increase in stress related absence and job dissatisfaction.  And yet, regardless of what the Cambridge review might feed back, the Government now looks set to impose rigid Learning and Development goals on kids from birth to five that could have a devastating effect on all forms of alternative education.  More information on this and the petition to stop it in next post…

Welcome to Steiner Dialogue

I’d like to start an open conversation with parents and teachers to discuss all aspects of Steiner education.  I’m a Steiner parent myself, and one of my clients in my Communications Consultancy is a Steiner school, so I guess you could say I’m ‘pro-Steiner’ but as well as talking to people within Steiner education, I would like to engage in a wider educational debate with other ‘alternatives’ in education as well as mainstream educators.  As a group of people with a keen interest in education, what passions and concerns do we share?