Casuarina School's vision is to develop creative young people with a passion for life-long learning, an understanding of the unique contribution they can make to the world, and a holistic sense of care for the environment and people. Casuarina School is committed to nurturing the children in the spiritual, artistic, and intellectual environment of Steiner Education. We engage children through educating the head, heart, and hands so that harmony in all three may be achieved as the foundation for balanced, responsible, and free human beings. We enable children to be innovative and guide them towards self-responsibility while being mindful of others' rights.
Casuarina Steiner School began life as the Casuarina Community School, operating out of the Sawtell Reserve Hall in 1986. A small group of parents started a playgroup a year or so earlier with the idea of starting up a community school. A conference on educational philosophies in Coffs Harbour that year and Alan Whitehead, author and Steiner Education expert, spoke about the Steiner Education approach. This conference, and particularly Alan's talk, prompted this small group of parents to base their community school on the educational philosophies of Rudolf Steiner.
Kindergarten is offered at Casuarina for children in the year they turn six years old. Once children enter Kindergarten, they are on the threshold of formal education. In Kindergarten, the homelike environment of warmth and security continues so that children may gain the confidence to pass on to school and the world beyond happily.
From the developing picture given by Dr. Steiner and other educators, we are aware that children of this age learn by doing and imitation, that there is 'participatory knowing.' This participatory or facet knowing needs to be grounded in lived experience in order for abstract concept building to emerge in later years. Through physical sensory and motor activity, through imitation and play, the young child comes to know and make the world his or her own.
Within the world of the Casuarina, Kindergarten play remains the child's work. Living in a world of fairytale and imagination, they learn artistic and musical activity. He or she will paint, color, draw, model with bees-wax, bake and experience other handcraft activities. Stories, songs, poems, and rhymes, often colored by the seasons and sometimes acted out, are an essential part of each day. Time is given to forms of free play that positively encourage imaginative responses. The toys provided are made of natural materials—wood and fabrics—or maybe natural objects such as pine cones or seashells that the children may have collected on their walks.
