Shearwater Steiner School

Since the inception of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart in 1919, Steiner Schools have earned an enviable reputation throughout the world as successful educators of creative, socially aware, and clear-minded individuals keen to take their place in, and contribute to, their community. Consequently, the Steiner School movement has become the fastest-growing independent school initiative globally, with some 800 educational establishments found throughout Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia. Steiner inspired education is based on three perennially supportive principles.

• veneration for the child's past,
• protection for its present, and
• optimism for its future

This approach strives to recognize each child's individuality and aims to create a physical, social, and spiritual environment in which that individuality can unfold with confidence. It also seeks to develop inner mobility and subtlety in children to help them deal with the challenges of rapidly changing social structures and technology. Steiner education offers a broadly based learning program balancing artistic, practical, and academic activities to meet these aims. Teachers are dedicated to generating a genuine inner enthusiasm for learning in every child through the powerful, imaginative, and dynamic presentation, designed to make even dry and prosaic subjects exciting and relevant. This method removes the pressure for competitive testing, placing, and rewards as motivation are encouraged to come from within. The perceived changes in the child's development and the crucial changes in student/teacher relationships determine the lesson content and teaching process.

The school's founders envisioned a holistic place of learning from the outset, supporting humanity throughout its journey, from birthing center and family support to playgroup and preschool. Children would then travel from kindergarten, via primary school to the high school, the more traditional learning institutions which will be flanked by a biodynamic farm, a theatre and performance space for Wearable Arts, Eurythmy, Drama and Music, a recording and film-editing studio, a unique space for overseas students, and tertiary, trade training and adult courses in a separate facility.

On the outskirts of our school campus, they envisioned overseas student lodging facilities, a diversity of centers of expertise (Design & Manufacturing, Sustainable Business, Hospitality, Farming, Marine Biology), and the creation of an eco-village, all supported by community banking and founded on a community title.

Shearwater's annual Wearable Arts Performance has become the highlight of the School year. The event draws together hundreds of artists, performers, and entertainment industry professionals and runs over three nights. Performances sell out, and it pays to book well in advance. Wearable Arts blends theatrics and choreography, seeking through the magic of dance, music, drama, lighting, costume, and pageantry to focus on the performer – the human being as a measure of all things. Add to these the craft arts of fabric design, felting, weaving, printing, jewelry making, body decoration… and you will possibly agree that this event is a synthesizing of all the arts. An independent panel of judges award donated the prize money to category winners and an overall grand winner.