to be amazed it's taken so long for a Steiner school to be shut down over safeguarding issues?

[QoFE]

And the biggest bestest shiniest one in the UK at that - Kings Langley

I'm aware it's a touchy subject and that MNHQ have been threatened with legal action for allowing open discussion of these and other issues on here so I won't go into my own experiences (I have done in the last under name changes but I think all the posts got deleted).

Suffice to say this does not surprise me in the least.

I believe the Steiner school in Aberdeen was closed, following complaints and poor inspection results, with safeguarding concerns. It was a while ago and I'm having connectivity problems, here's the best link I could find, I recall the school closed voluntarily, citing financial issues, but the circumstances seemed quite damning.

www.scotsman.com/news/education/children-s-care-probed-at-aberdeen-s-waldorf-school-1-3335760

Wow. It really is repeated with no attempt to address the issues isn't it. And so many issues!!!

TheFrendo how come?

I've no direct experience of Steiner other than I initially liked the stuff on a local website and the later start/laid back approach until mn warned me off!

It comes after Denis McCarthy, a senior staff member who was also a leading figure in the UK’s Steiner school movement, was sacked from the school for gross misconduct

He was a senior figure in anthroposophy,” a source close to the school told The Sunday Telegraph. “He was the most powerful person in the school, he had a large following

I find that^ worrying. Anthroposophy is a pretty dodgy lens to view the world through, and if this guy was so high up he must have been a real believer.

How interesting. Aberdeen is a school I know to have given a job to a person who should never have been permitted near children again!

"powerful" and "following"make it sound even more cultlike.

The whole thing is very odd. The report says parents would arrange for pupils to meet teachers outside of school.wtf ?

Also lots of parental complaints mot followed up?!

The threads don't get shut down any more, the internet is too widely used for their cronies to go around scouring for lawsuits and big sites have become much more savvy about how to protect themselves legally even if people are being threatening.

And no idea if pupils and come back from lunch or not!? That's basic doing a register isnt it?! And could have been easily implemented...

Ten grand a year fees and the worst OFSTED report I have ever seen.

Denis was one of my sibling's class teacher for many years.

I've had a quick trawl of the news stories as this is the first I've heard of the closure and I'm reeling.

It amazes me that after so many damning reports parents were happy to send their children there. It makes you wonder the lies they told, as referenced in the Ofsted report. Sad for those children.

Looks like some of the concerns such as unsupervised visitors and sixth formers wondering on and off site are hot topics for ofsted at the minute. I know of two local schools who had the same issues and were given 24 hours to sort it or the school would be closed. These were big state acadamies. Previous ofsted inspection hadnt been bothered.

I expect it's the gnomes.

I've a friend with her DC in a Steiner school. I'm not too sure what the exact difference is as on the surface our DCs schools seem similar (that's ignoring costs).

There are a few aspects where she and I part in the field of parenting though.

Her oldest is quite precocious, always has been - at (just) 11 she has sort out and viewed pornography: my friend is quite convinced this is normal and that i am daft for thinking my dc hadnt purposefully searched for it by 11.

itsAllGoingFine: Anthroposophy is the basis of Steiner schooling. Steiner schools are the educational wing of the Anthroposoply movement!.

Steiner philosophy seems to me to be incompatible with the tenets of Safeguarding. In two seperate schools different friends had children who were bullied (to the extent of actual injury) and the schools refused to tackle it because they believe it interrupts s child'a spiritual path if they don't sort these things out for themselves. (Probably a bad paraphrase of the source belief, but the upshot was the same: the policy was non intervention in bullying or conflict between children)

I think it's very common especially with phones and access to everything on the net. I can't remember exact figures but there's an alarming percentage of 11 year olds who have seen porn. It's sad porn is kids' point of reference these days. It's certainly very common for 11 year olds to be curious about sex.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/porn-children-pornography-online-nspcc-half-children-quarter-11-year-olds-a7082791.html

Yanbu. I think it's important people see this. There have been a lot of warnings about this and I think some people are just refusing to read them

I've just read the ofsted report ,it's shocking!

If the school is shut down, where will all the pupils go, bearing in mind all the local state schools are full and over-subscribed?

This demonstrates part of the difficulty of fitting different approaches within the Ofsted framework. Of course it is crap, but by the looks of things parents were party to arranging meets between staff and pupils etc so were on board with it. The Steiner philosophy isn't for me, but it is for a lot of parents.

The school are telling parents that they have a good chance of appealing the decision. They've hired in some big name lawyers and a new head teacher. My DCs don't go here but I know lots of people who do.

Witsender: that is true, and fine up to a point, in respect of different approaches.

What is not fine is the lack of communication, information and accountability in dealing with staff wrt Child Sexual Abuse allegations.