As parents we want our children to be happy now, and we want them to have every chance of happiness as adults. It can be difficult to accept what is not known about the future in which they will grow to adulthood; what will make them unhappy that we can’t imagine, that we might not ever see?

When we thought about our daughter’s education, we were concerned that most schools would try to prepare her for an increasingly intangible world by asking her to collaborate in it, to compromise her sense of presence and self so she could ‘keep up’ with her future as she arrived in it.

We felt Steiner education offered a place for our daughter that grasped the perennial facts of childhood, personhood and life; that seasons pass and repeat, that people change and grow in predictable but not identical ways, that we are individuals and that we are part of a whole. That we can grasp an object, or a moment, or an idea, firmly but gently.

We chose Steiner because we wanted our daughter to have that place within herself as an adult, somewhere she could return to where she can use her hands, make something, grow something, a place to speak from.

- Alex 

Parent to Class Four student