Our approach to numeracy prioritises hands-on learning and real-world connections, taught in a deeply integrated and sequential manner.

Rich imaginative stories and characters are used to enliven maths concepts, and movement, repetition and rhythmic work bring a full-body experience and understanding.

All through the Primary Years the natural world serves as an essential tool for mathematical learning, such as observing patterns in nature and investigating geometric shapes in the world around us. Artistic and practical activities such as drawing and painting are used extensively to enliven concepts such as geometry and fractions. From early beanbag games, clapping, chanting, stamping and singing times tables to creating intricate, artistic geometrical forms, this methodical and rigorous approach nurtures a deep knowledge and comprehension of mathematics through practical, experiential and creative methods.

The development of artistic sensitivity is explored through all subjects. Art activities such as drawing and wax modelling are integrated into all lessons, helping to deepen children’s experience and exploration of lesson content in all subjects.

In the Primary Years painting with watercolours, using a method known as wet-on-wet painting, gives an opportunity for the Class Teacher to observe the child’s temperament. Through this clear, fluid medium children experience the qualities and interactions of colour, inspiring deep feelings and impressions.

Craft has a crucial role to play in our curriculum. Practical work harmonises children, working down into the life processes and bodily rhythms. Rhythmic handwork strengthens both the will and the capacity for logical thinking. Formative aesthetic experiences in colour and texture provide foundations for future feelings, imagination and inclinations.

Employing a progression of materials and skills, specialist teachers  join our Primary classes to offer diverse projects in textiles and woodwork.

Drama is an integral part of the literacy curriculum. The children’s first reader is often their first performed play. From puppet plays in Kindergarten to solo performances in Year 12, the school provides a sequenced experience of drama, hosting a play production involving each class every year.

Plays are chosen to elaborate the epoch studied at each year level, advancing students’ love and respect for language and performance, and developing an appreciation for the capacities and strengths of each class member.

In the early Primary Years geography is taught in unity with other subjects, with the aim of getting to know and feel connected with our physical surroundings and the work people do.

From Class 4 we widen our horizons and geography is named as a separate subject, encompassing environmental studies, cultural studies, simple astronomy, geology, and the study of human beings, plants and animals.

Another integrated study in early Primary Years, history is only called a separate subject from Class 5, where the ancient cultures of India, Persia, Mesopotamia and Egypt are explored in myth and fact. China, Mesopotamia and South America are also often studied. This is followed by Greek culture and Homer’s epics.

In Class 6 the children meet Alexander the Great through biography, his explorations and conquests. Roman history is brought to life through looking at its foundations and the development of the Roman Empire and, of course, the beginnings of democracy.

Class 6 also studies Australian history and the early European settlement of Australia as well as Aboriginal culture.

Foreign language studies foster a positive attitude to people of other cultures and establish our ability to empathise with another person’s way of seeing the world.

Learning a foreign language strengthens  students’ ability to listen sensitively to others and supports flexible, mobile thinking.

We offer French and German. Specialist teachers who are native speakers join the Class Teacher to engage in a range of practical and artistic activities, focusing on giving the child an ‘ear’ for the language.

Music is a vital and prominent feature of daily life at our school. It involves singing – often spontaneously while painting or packing up or while moving from here to there – as well as movement with and to music.

Music is offered as an integral aspect of our school life from Kindergarten to Year 12, in special ways and in everyday ways, in classrooms and assemblies, as well as festivals and celebrations.

A sequential experience of music includes singing, daily recorder practice, string instrument lessons and string orchestra. From Class 3 the children have a weekly half-hour instrument lesson and from Class 4 a class orchestra rehearsal.

Festivals and celebrations always incorporate music, singing, sharing and celebrating through rhythm and ritual.

You can read more about our Music program
here.

From Class 3 children participate in a range of camp experiences in which increasing independence is fostered. Camps are an integral part of our education and are run by our outstanding Outdoor Education staff.

From the homely and simple first camp, where parents share in cooking and activities to the adventurous camps of our Secondary Years, students are offered a wonderful range of landscapes and activities that expand their sense of what is possible, increase their awareness of the natural world, and offer opportunities for sharing company, food, skills and play.

Primary students camp in tents and increasingly share in cooking. Each year provides a different focus such as walking, swimming, snorkelling or surfing.

You can read more about out Outdoor Education program here.

Beginning in the Primary Years with games, skipping, clapping, throwing and catching activities integrated into the Main Lesson, children progress to more formal movement education led by specialist teachers in the Gym.

Games provide opportunities for courage and caution in both individual and group challenges. Separating, interacting and joining again highlights the importance of relationships and their moral basis, facilitated by the ‘rules of the game’.

A form of movement called Bothmer Gymnastics provides opportunities to develop balance, uprightness, and clarity of form.

The Steiner approach to science aims to cultivate a sense of awe in young children, allowing them to develop an appreciation for the order, form and beauty of nature.

This is facilitated in our Primary students by encouraging exploration, close observation, and direct experience of physical phenomena in the world around them. Class Teachers encourage an open-minded exploration of causes and principles, with conclusions and concepts derived from observations before introducing more formal theories.

Science in the early Primary Years is integrated into daily activities like outdoor play, painting, music, baking and cooking, emphasising experience and imagination over intellectual content.

The curriculum gradually introduces subjects such as zoology, botany, physics, geology, human biology, astronomy and chemistry with more formality later in the Primary Years.

Throughout our school we strive to empower our students with a rigorous, open-minded and questioning scientific education.

Eurythmy is a form of harmonious movement developed by Rudolf Steiner that is unique to Steiner schools.

Eurythmy movements and gestures work with the sounds of the spoken word through poetry, verse and story and our relationship to the sounds in music. Eurythmy works with the life-giving etheric forces of the body, fostering harmonious movement and general well-being.

Educational Eurythmy supports the child’s incarnation process so that they feel well within their bodies, thus enabling them to connect to themselves and the world.

Our school offers both Educational Eurythmy to support students and the class as a whole, and Curative Eurythmy which is a healing modality that works one on one with more specific needs.

You can read more about Curative Eurythmy here.

Throughout the Primary Years, students visit the school Farm. Nothing beats plucking an apple straight from the tree and chomping into its crisp sweetness. The Farm provides an opportunity to smell the grass, feel the damp earth, turn a clod, or take home a plum or nashi pear!

One of the main attractions, somewhere between the beehives and the mudbricks, is Farmer Ben, who always has a job to do, a problem to solve, a strawberry guava to eat, or a plough that needs pushing.

The Farm provides a wealth of sense impressions, a connection to the seasons, practical skills and a sense of one’s strength, a knowledge of our food and the way all parts in nature contribute to the whole – all this fosters a firm sense of standing on the earth.