Lower School

The Lower School starts at age 7 (or children who will be 7 in the course of the year) and takes them through to age 13 or 14.

At this age children are living very strongly in their feeling life, so content is presented in a vivid, pictorial way with the use of stories without too many abstract concepts.

We have a strong emphasis on following the rhythm of the day, the week and the year. All main subjects such as English, mathematics, history, geography, physics and chemistry are studied in depth in blocks of 3-4 weeks as ‘main lessons’, following closely the Steiner Waldorf curriculum.

Teachers are not routinely changed each year as classes move up the school. Instead there is an emphasis on continuity of teacher, of knowing each child and meeting individual needs.

The Lower School’s main lessons are reinforced by time spent in the natural world, and by class visits, for example to local farms.

At this age our approach is very much on experiential learning in the physical world, using creativity and imagination, as opposed to more passive and directed forms of learning from the ‘virtual world’ of film, television, computers, computer games, and so on. We also feel that many of the messages and images from the mainstream media are inappropriate for this stage of childhood development. Therefore all parents at the school formally agree to delay the introduction of electronic media until the students are older.