Reducing Absenteeism, Mental Health Pressures And Growing SEND
Waldorf UK
Creativity, play and hands-on learning could be key to tackling rising absenteeism, mental health pressures and the growth in SEND needs in schools, according to new research from the University of Winchester.
The study — Cultivating the Skills and Dispositions Young People Need to Flourish in Life — by Professor Bill Lucas and Dr Ellen Spencer, reviews four core practices:
- experiential learning
- interdisciplinary learning
- play
- creative education.
It finds strong international evidence that these approaches can:
- improve pupils’ motivation, wellbeing and engagement
- strengthen collaboration and problem-solving
- deepen understanding and support attainment
They also align with international frameworks endorsed by the OECD, World Economic Forum, International Baccalaureate and Association for Science Education.
Lucas and Spencer argue that the long-running national debate framed as “knowledge vs skills” is a false binary which risks obstructing progress. Children need both strong knowledge foundations and the opportunity to develop complex skills such as collaboration, problem solving and creativity.
The report identifies Steiner Waldorf schools — which embed the four practices in their education provision — as powerful case studies of how creative, practical and interdisciplinary learning can be woven into everyday teaching.
The findings strengthen the independent evidence base for the Steiner Waldorf approach, helping to reassure current and prospective parents, inform policymakers, and support our inclusion in wider national conversations about education in the UK. Together this strengthens and protects our school movement.
Professor Bill Lucas, Director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester, said: “Creative education is particularly important. In an AI world, the expression of human creativity and intelligence is essential - but it needs to be embedded, not treated as an ‘extra’. England is currently an international outlier in not integrating creativity more explicitly into schooling. Waldorf education shows how this can be achieved.”
There is one state and 16 independent Waldorf schools in the UK, including one in Wales and two in Scotland.
Education Manager of Edinburgh Steiner School, Alistair Pugh, adds:
Edinburgh Steiner School is providing badly needed answers to questions about the future of education in Scotland. Following criticism, back in 2021, by the OECD of the Scottish Government’s mainstream Curriculum for Excellence, not a lot has changed. Assessment in most Scottish schools is still stuck in a cycle of rote learning and regurgitation of bullet points. In stark contrast, Edinburgh Steiner School is in its fifth year of delivering Integrative Education; regulated qualifications equivalent to three GCSEs which are based on portfolios, not exams, and which credit the process of creative and reflective thinking.
Integrative Education starts from the premise that all subjects are interrelated. In this way, genuine, open questions are unconstrained by artificial ‘topics’. Project work begins with whatever the learner finds interesting, and, crucially any non-formal and informal learning undertaken outside the classroom can be credited. If a student has taken on the task of, say, booking a trip to a music festival with friends, they will almost certainly have learned something; and solved problems—more often than not in a creative or innovative way—along the way. So they can write that up and get credit for it.
Reflection is also a fundamental part of IE, allowing young people to think about how they learn, and how they can improve their learning. This is empowering, and fosters a crucial proficiency needed by our students today: resilience.
