Primary School
Primary Classes
When children enter primary school they are eager to learn. However they are not yet ready for the conceptual academic intellect that develops later on. What is ready to be exercised is a new capacity for memory, one that is nourished by a rich pictorial, feeling style of thinking. Children of this age learn through what they feel. They need to feel both the laughter and the tears of life each day. For this reason the primary years of education are characterised by an artistically rich story-based curriculum that gives the child a harmoniously balanced day.
The more academic features are introduced at the beginning of each day, integrated with movement, music, poetry and art in the main lesson. The focus of this period is to awaken a living creative activity in the developing thought life. Each main lesson lasts 3-4 weeks, then is left to rest. This provides for maximum development of the theme, concentration and understanding. The breathing space in between – the forgetting – is part of the “digestion” of education. Subjects such as a foreign language, practice lessons in maths and English, music and eurythmy are best taught in the middle lessons and active subjects such as games, sport, gardening, cooking and woodwork are best in the afternoons. The focus of these afternoon lessons is to bring direction and form into the world of practical work.
At class 1, the children meet a class teacher with whom they will work in the same class group throughout the primary years. This allows a strong connection between teacher and child that sustains their development during these years. The children quickly come to love their teacher and to experience the partnership between parents and school, which underpins also their social development. Being with the same group of children in their voyage from Prep to the end of high school is a remarkably strong aspect of the education.
Specialist teachers are involved in subjects such as French, eurythmy, music, craft and physical education.
During the primary years the curriculum supports the unfolding feeling life through the different themes and stories that accompany each year. From fairy stories and folk tales that capture and inspire the imagination in Class One through stories such as the Norse myths that engage the will so strongly in Class Four to Roman stories in Class Six where the sense of the emerging personality with a need for law and justice meets the inner world of the child at that age, the soul of the child is richly stimulated and awakened. In Class Seven, history brings the child through stories of the renaissance and explorers who opened up the new world to the brink of modern times.
This phase of development, where the heart and soul of childhood is cultivated, continues for around seven years. Around the age of twelve, (Class Six), there is an emerging style of thinking that often manifests in the classroom (and at home) in many questions. Now their emerging intellect demands a new approach. This is the normal age for the beginning of the abstract conceptual thinking that characterises our adult way of seeing the world. Now we must create a way of educating that supports this capacity that blossoms during the high school as the ability for discerning thinking and independent judgment.