My nieces may be being enrolled in one and on the surface I'm sure that it is all lovely, but they are a Christian family and some of the Steiner stuff just sounds weird to me. Anyone been through the system or has views on it?
Funnily enough my niece was going to go there also. I think they decided against it for the same reason you have highlighted. It's teaching methods subvert the norm and I think you've always got to question the motive's of a school that's run by one family. Incidentally my niece is now going to be enrolled at the Shapwick School.
Thanks Mountainbo, though l think that we are probably writing about 2 different schools.
On a different note, the dyslexia friendly school sounds very interesting. One of mine has it, and the biggest help we found was the Toe by Toe book. Labour intensive, but made a real difference to us - Isaac is severely dyslexic, but reads well, did well.in gcses and is now doing his A levels (and he is HAPPY! - just back from an adventure in Mexico!
Steiner's educational philosophy is 100 years old. Why anyone would think that it was the pinnacle of the field is beyond me.
My wife is a school teacher and one school she taught at was not far from a Steiner school. Every year a few of the Steiner students would turn up with major reading problems.
Steiner's doctrine insisted reading should not be introduced to a child until they had their first adult teeth so generally the kids from that school lagged well behind most other children.
Steiner was driven by mysticism and tried to blend that with science. Like so much of mysticism his philosophy did not stand up to objective analysis so he avoided that in favour of doctrine. What resulted was mysticism under the guise of science.