Learn with us.
PRIMARY SCHOOL
Our Primary School is the realm of beauty, where learning is imbued with appreciation, awe, reverence and wonder.
PRIMARY SCHOOL
The realm of beauty
In Steiner education, you will often hear the phrase ‘head, heart and hands’ or ‘thinking, feeling and willing’. These are the capacities we seek to develop in the children, and each is aligned with a different developmental stage. We see these human qualities in the world as truth, beauty and goodness.
Our Primary School is the realm of beauty, encompassing appreciation, awe, reverence and wonder. In a Steiner Primary School the teacher and the children create their environment together. They make the room beautiful and create beautiful work, and they learn to act and express themselves in beautiful ways.
A sense of beauty awakened in the soul, forges a link between the human being and the spirit and provides the resilience young people need as they enter adolescence and embark on a quest for truth, through their awakening capacity for thinking and reason.
PRIMARY SCHOOL
Learning through story
Stories are the medium through which the world and all the things in it are communicated to Primary School children, and the art of story creation and storytelling is something that teachers are encouraged to develop.
At Shearwater, our curriculum has deep roots in the learning program developed by Rudolf Steiner, with a contemporary appreciation of this time and place. This creative approach has provided a source of inspiration to our Primary School teachers who look to local geography, flora and fauna, including the deep connections to this Land of our First Nations peoples.
PRIMARY SCHOOL
The Class Teacher
Primary School children learn best through the authority of a person they know and trust. Ideally each Class Teacher stays with their class right through the Primary grades. The continuity of this important relationship provides a secure basis for the children to mature in later years, confident in their own independent judgement and action.
The Class Teacher is responsible for the Main Lesson period each day, with specialist teachers giving instruction in areas such as languages, crafts, music and eurythmy.
To accompany a class through seven years of Primary School is a challenging, adventurous, sometimes daunting but always inspiring journey through the foundation years of education. At the end of seven years together, the Teacher and the Class truly experience a sense of completion and fulfillment.
PRIMARY SCHOOL
Strings Program
Playing an instrument is an integral part of a Steiner education and at Shearwater, all students in Class 3 to 6 will choose from the violin or cello, taking part in weekly ensembles and small group or private lessons, as well as regular recitals, masterclasses and chamber group performances.
The learning of a stringed instrument reinforces a child’s sense of personal expression, physicality, cognitive brain development and the right use of will. The very nature of ‘searching for the note’ on a fretless stringed instrument assists children in seeking out all that is true, harmonious and beautiful in the world around them.
Shearstrings is our extension ensemble for students in Class 4 to 6 and High School strings players can continue their instrument by joining Rhapsody or High School orchestra.
