Steiner schools- We got a place

[birdsflying]

Hello, (This is a fair ramble of thoughts and feelings)
I have read previous threads on the subject of Steiner schools and i'm hoping to start this one without debate. Please only post YOUR experiences.

My two children have been offered a place at a local steiner school. We have just moved into the area and had been on a waiting list.

I love the ethos and I like the fact that they put off all the reading a writing until the age of seven and focus on other activities before then. The nature based learning and i'm not opposed to the spirituality.

I think this form of education would suit my youngest who is quite the personality and not very keen on writing (she's five). She struggles and is behind her peers at school. Wheras my son is very academic and loves learning and maths. Unfortunately I can't send one and not the other.

We are quite an alterniative family and have mostly lived in tightly knit communities of artists and creatives. We have moved rurally into a conservative area where breast feeding is frowned upon and where excluding people from play groups is the done thing if you have a difference in opinion (not my personal experience thankfully- just a witness).

We want to accept the place as we believe it might also be a good way to be apart of a community. The issue for us is mostly the fees.
We're in a fair amount of debt around 10,000 and have no savings behind us. We have put everything into a spreadsheet and it looks like we could afford it but things would be quite tight.. We worked out we could potatially pay our debts off over 8 years and pay the school fees but would be left with no savings or luxuries. (they have about 12 years of schooling before them).

I am freelance so sometimes I get non attanding clients or no shows and now and again need time off when unwell- unpaid obviously so as far as my job is concerned i'm not completely as stable as somebody working in employment. I have also had bad bouts of ill health over the last few years and have had months off work now and again. Luckily i've been okay over the last 2 years but it's always in the back of my mind that I will relapse and be in the same situation. I don't want my ill health to get in the way of this decision either.

I want to know about peoples experiences, is it amazing? Did your child thrive? How was the parent community? Any regrets? If i'm paying for it and sacrificing luxuries/essentially half a house in money, then I want to know that my children are being taught and have a good experience of it. I've talked to some steiner mums who say its down to the teacher?

This has been one of the hardest decisions to make for our family and we have spent two weeks discussing the pros and cons. We need to decide by tomorrow at the latest so please give your exeriences.

Please be nice and as i've said I WANT EXPERIENCES ONLY posi or nagative AND NO DEBATE- Everyone has their own story,. XX cheers in advance x

My main concern would be your financial situation - it sounds really precarious. Having school fees in the mix might well be a stressor that would affect you negatively.

You can't afford it. It's as simple as that.

Which is a lucky escape for your children really, given what Steiner schools offer.

There are elements of Steiner education that interest me, but from what I've heard, it is very teacher based and there's not the same kind of teacher standardisation as in mainstream systems. Luck of the draw.

I know someone who went to the very famous Steiner school in NYC and she's a lovely, well adjusted mainstream teacher now. I think she just spent her last two years there.

In your situation I'd think about the following:

Are you nervous about interacting as an adult with the mainstream education of your kids? Is that more about you than them?

You say your daughter is struggling. Perhaps Steiner would suit her well and bring the best out of her, or perhaps it would be a way to ignore educational needs that require further investigation and attention.

Sounds like you really can't afford it which will ultimately cause many more stresses and headaches.

Is it more for you or for them?

It really sounds as if you can't afford it, that she the biggest issue here.

See how your daughter does in mainstream school, pay off your debts then reconsider where you want your children to be schooled.

You can't really afford it, like many of us can't afford to pay for our dc's education, so he ts an easier decision to make.

Your friend will be absolutely right when she says it will depend on the teacher. Especially as they have the same teacher throughout the whole school so if you get a duff one or one your dc don't gel with you are doomed.

We went to look round our local one as we had moved from another country that was relaxed about education and my youngest dd didn't get a school place. On paper I thought it would suit her. Not pushy of focused on academic success. Nature and creativity and all that malarkey.

I absolutely hated it. It was insular and unwelcoming. (Mind my dc aren't white so that might explain that one) the children we met were rude and unable to behave. The work was formulaic and uninspiring. They didn't do sport.

Coming at it from a different angle, is home education an opinion for you? You could get the community you're looking for without the school fees. Your son could also flexi school if he's enjoying mainstream education but you don't want him to feel excluded from what's happening at home. I know three children who flexi school from main stream primary schools, I don't think it's a well known option but it's one that is available.

Ds has just completed his Steiner education and is off to Uni next month. I have never regretted my decision to send him. You are unlikely to get anything but negativity about Steiner on MN and I don't want to get into the usual bun fight, Please feel free to pm if you want to ask anything,The way of learning doesn't suit everyone but was a perfect fit for Ds. Keeping him there has been a struggle financially but worth every sacrifice I made to allow him to complete his education there.

I went to a Steiner school. I enjoyed it. I liked the arts/crafts side and am a self-starter so did relatively well academically. I would have done better elsewhere, but got the place I wanted in uni etc.

However, there were other aspects of the education that I didn't know how to describe until I saw criticism in MN and then did some research myself. Firstly, there was awful bullying in my school - and things like sexual assaults on girls with a female teacher seeing it and doing nothing. Other non-sexual things too. I'm talking of my direct experience here - both to me and I witnessed. I also heard of things happening that should have been massive red flags and (I now know) reported to social services, but weren't, because the school was very closed off to the outside in some ways.

And what you said about mother groups ostracising people who think differently - yeah, well, that's how the school I was in worked. Even amongst the kids. If you were from the right background, then the teachers liked you a bit more than if you weren't. Certainly all the kids in my class knew that and it reflected in the friendship groups within the class.

And I think it's also very telling that most of the people I know from school, including those who grew up in various Steiner communities, do not send their own kids to Steiner schools, even when there's one nearby.

And I don't and wouldn't, because of the bullying issue. I had never heard about the karma idea behind leaving kids to get on with it until reading it here. My research (because I didn't know what the hell was being discussed) made sense of what I'd seen and experienced. It was shocking. And worst is that in more than one case those who were being bullied in middle school went on later to send-harm in some pretty awful ways. Bad enough, but in cases where the school knew for certain, they were obstructive in this person getting help and they ended up leaving school early. This was someone academically good.

So I see the benefits of Steiner education and I sometimes see my own children's school and wish it could be a bit more arty, more magical, or have nicer looking classrooms, but then I remind myself that they're far safer there than in a school that considers that society's rules don't apply to it.

*self-harm

I went to a Steiner school. It was awful. I was bullied terribly for many years, it was never dealt with, very rigid, group reinforcing thinking. It's not mainstream but it's very rigid within its own beliefs and very insular.

I would never send my children to a Steiner school. Not because of the cost but because I consider it my job as a parent to keep them safe.

Without outing myself, someone in my family has been involved with this.
I wouldn't bother. I think it can be a wonderful experience for some. But if your daughter is struggling she possibly needs learning support help. A good primary school should have specialists who can help with this. With Steiner, you're delaying the inevitable. All very well saying she doesn't like writing now but it's a basic skill that you need for a lifetime. The bullying issues are well known.
If you have your heart set on it, can you not look at employment which is a bit more secure?

It sounds like you can't afford it and you need to move on to think about other schools.

Sorry OP.

OP - btw on the artsy/musical side I'm sending my kids to after school clubs where they do those things nfs. Not in a Steiner ethos, but they do them very nicely. So perhaps mainstream education with some budget for those things instead of budget blown on the fee-paying school?

Also, while school is incredibly important, so is family life. If you're (parents) under increased stress that won't help anybody. Additionally, what you teach your children at home, in terms of thinking outside the box etc will also have a great impact. Don't underestimate what you're already offering them.

I used to work for someone who had a child at a Steiner School. I heard all this about how lovely they are, how supportive everyone is, how it is a community. One day she couldn't get to pick up so I went to get child and I found him huddled under a table crying, teacher was ignoring and at first I thought she didn't know what was going on so I said, X is under the table crying and she shrugged her shoulders. She then carried on talking to the little gang of parents surrounding her, telling her how wonderful she was. I was getting angry and repeated that he was under the table crying and she said, "he is OK" and I raised my voice and said "look at him, if that is your idea of OK it isn't mine." The other parents wouldn't even look at me.

I thought it was a vile place and if you don't fit it 100% they don't want to know, far more excluding than any mainstream school I have ever been in.

Maybe not all are like that but you asked for personal experiences.

KateLennard I wonder if we are talking about the same school, sounds very similar.

The local saying about the Steiner kids in the town was, "Nice kids, bit dim." Apparently the educational standard wasn't great.

WIll 10k debt I'd be focusing on getting rid of that and securing a roof over your DC heads first. You can't afford private school. If you don't like the vibe of where you live, move house if needs be to a more suitable community for you; areas vary massively IMO.

Regardless of whether the school is a good fit, it would be madness to commit to something you cannot afford.

Once we had moved our DCs from state to private, we never felt able to go back. And those fees keep going up. £75k for three teens this year alone...

My experience is that at £10k in debt before you've even paid the deposit- you cannot afford a school with fees.
We had 6 years of fees set aside before our elder child began school. The last few years have been a bit of a squeeze, and we're in an area with great job opportunities, certainly not in precarious employment situation.

Hope it's not the one in King's Langley, as it's not likely to stay open for much longer...

I don't have any experience with schools as my eldest is only three. That said he is already starting to read and write a bit. I doubt that there is any benefit in delaying education but there is much to be gained by teaching them basic skills early on. It seems like you are mostly interested in this because 1. Your daughter is behind and 2. You want the community. Perhaps the money would be better spent on extra help for your daughter as for the community this won't have much of an impact on your children-or may be nonexistent-a lot of parents at private schools just don't bother with that.

Sorry that went from experience to opinion very quickly. Let me try again. Experience:no need to delay learning.

In your financial situation I wouldn't consider any kind of private school, aside from the other issues

As others have said, you simply cannot afford private education for 2 children if you're in that much debt before you've even paid a single fee.

Is home education an option? For you're freelance could you offset the loss of earnings against the fees?

The one person I know who had a Steiner education has not sent any of their own children to a Steiner school.