Steiner education

[savidgerl]

Does anyone here have any experience of steiner schools, either as a pupil or parent? Thanks

lol charliecat. Her behaviour sounds quite autisticy to me. Would be nice to think she flourished there. When we were having an absolute nightmare with ds1 (pre-dx) the local Steiner group were very very kind to us.

We went on an open day there with her when i was..er about 9 and I remember the greenness and the painting/craft stuff and the wooden playstuff and seeing no comparison to my concrete school but at the same time not being envious because she was away from home for most of the month whilst I was at home with my mum.

I wonder how she is now.

awww hopefully it gave her all the life skills she needed. She's probably a Steiner mum now

Yeah!

My own recollections of mainstream school are not positive. Any love of learning was quickly squashed. Of course it depends on the child and the school, but I think this is an incredibly important decision. I have worked in a mainstream school as a classroom assistant. I didn't always like what I saw. Teachers have so many time constraints that spontaneous learning is seldom allowed to happen. I witnessed this on several occasions. Made me question about how I would like DS to experience school.

Savidgerl, sounds like you might want to look into home educating as an option? I feel the same way about mainstream schools squashing a love of learning, and the more I read about home ed the more I think it could be the answer for my family.

DH loved school (well the whole social side of it). Thinks it's important for DS to relate to other children, learning to get along with you people you don't necessarily like. I think he has a point so we are looking for a compromise solution that we are all happy with.

Savidgirl, you sound like you are looking for the same as me in a school. I think I am looking for something in between ordinary school and Steiner, but don't think it exists.....

How about something from the Small Schools' movement -- the only one I could find that has a website is this one in Kingston upon Thames, but there are others, particularly in the SW (Hartland, I think, and possibly somewhere in Cornwall).

I've just removed my son from a "small school" as the disadvantages started outweighing the advantages. One of my main gripes was the number of incredibly badly behaved children - a lot of whom were originally Steiner educated - and parents who seemed to think that offering an "alternative education" meant the school had to accept anything from the children who were just "expressing their individuality" - puke! Originally when I sent my older son there it looked like a dream come true, and I loved the idea of my younger son starting reception in such a small environment. DS1 had a great time for the last two years of primary school, but from an education point of view he was very badly prepared for his transition to mainstream secondary. When DS2 moved to a fairly large state primary school after Easter this year I breathed a sign of relief to be around normal kids with their normal parents again! (and normal isn't a word I usually like!).