New Friends, Familiar Faces: An Evening for All Parents

Wed September 18, 2024
6pm - 8.30pm

Enrolled families are warmly invited to the annual Whole School Parents Evening, New Friends, Familiar Faces: An Evening for All Parents. It’s a wonderful opportunity for new parents to get to know our community and our existing families to reconnect after a busy summer.

At Edinburgh Steiner School, we believe that children thrive when there’s a strong connection between home and school. With this in mind, we have designed an evening that we hope will help inspire, nurture, and fortify these vital connections.

Agenda highlights

Updates from members of the Senior Management Team and Board of Trustees
An update on the work of the PTA and opportunities to get involved
Q&A

The Programme

You have decided on a Waldorf education for your child in Edinburgh and may be witnessing positive changes in their curiosity for learning and motivation to come to school. It is a decision that you have chosen for yourself too.

Meet

Nick Brett, Interim Head of School (Senior Management)
Alistair Pugh, Education Manager (Senior Management)
Helen Newton – Operations Manager (Senior management)
Tobias Emonts-Holley – Acting Chair of the Board of Trustees
Deirdre Hill, Chair of College of Teachers
Laura Whyte and Fiona Moore, Co-Chairs of PTA

Timetable

Every Class in the School is composed of children who come together daily from a wide variety of families, homes and cultural and religious backgrounds. What we experience as a group is the Steiner Waldorf curriculum, as interpreted and presented to the pupils by their teachers. It is distinctive in its breadth – through the Main Lesson Programme; qualifications (that incorporate Integrative Education suite of qualifications) and how it is embedded in child development.

Extra Curricular Activities

The Steiner curriculum aims to cover a wide range of activities for the pupils throughout each day. However, for pupils who wish to extend their interest beyond school hours a number of opportunities exist; and the offerings are regularly looked at so as to reflect the interests of the current pupils. The parent body can also offer their skills, resources/access to facilities to enrich this programme on an ad hoc / termly/one-off basis for the pupils.

Culture

The cultural life of the School is enriched by regular social occasions that reflect the time of year, including festivals & assemblies, Spring Fair and Christmas Market, as well as yearly ceilidhs (Halloween & Burns), exhibitions (Advanced Higher & GCSE Art, Class 8 Projects), concerts (Christmas) and drama productions (large-scale Beauty & the Beast and individual Class plays) and Working & Social Groups (eg PTA’s Book Club) which parents and siblings are warmly welcome to. They are an important part of school life. (School Calendar).

Communication

Many aspects of the School are communicated through the FAQs, Open Tour, Application Interview, Parent Handbook, School website (use the search bar above) and included in our weekly newsletter. Other times an email or face-to-face is needed.

Our People

Parental Involvement

We are on a collaborative journey striving to develop responsible, creative and freethinking young people, who will contribute to society and a sustainable environment with vision and purpose. There are various avenues where parents strengthen the education; and opportunities the School can provide for parents. Meet Committee Members of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA).

Working Groups: Parent Reading Group, Extra Curricular Clubs, Maintenance, Christmas Market – Join by emailing: pta@edinburghsteinerschool.org.uk
Convenors: each Class from Seedlings, Kindergarten, Lower School and Upper School has two Class Convenors.
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures: The Essentials of Education (Reading Group with Dr Iddo Obewrski)
Waldorf Arts & Crafts Saturday Workshops – led by Steiner Teacher, Leonie LeMaistre

Perhaps of interest: Lower Fees Enriched By Generous Coterie Buy-In