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The Kindergarten.
Contemporary life puts children under pressure to grow up quickly.Steiner Waldorf kindergartens take an unhurried approach to early education, with plenty of opportunity for imaginative play in a warm and secure environment. In this home-like protection zone, children have the opportunity to exercise their capacity for imitation of a loving adult, for social play, for language development and for activities such as baking, cooking, cleaning and sewing. The children also are able to play safely in the open air and in a sandpit, and to go for walks in natural surroundings. The emphasis in the kindergarten is that of a small community, helping to develop social skills and giving every child a sense of belonging.
A story is told every day in the kindergarten and often repeated for several days, so that the children can live their way into it, even dressing up and enacting it, the dramatic element in children's stories appealing to them, whilst an inner picture-forming process in the mind is exercised. Fairy stories in particular have an inner wisdom that tell of the joys and sufferings of human life. These give to children an inner reference point and the assurance of identification with the good.
Nursery rhymes, ring games and finger games - all feature strongly in the kindergarten. Each child moves on into school with a wealth of songs, stories and rhymes learnt by heart. Children stay on until they are nearly seven years of age. Older children invariably look back on their time in the kindergarten with affection. The current kindergarten teacher is Dorothea Vincenz in close association with the Class 1I teacher, Roswitha Reeve their two rooms being inter-connected and recently redesigned.
Our kindergarten is not a local authority-funded provider of Early Years education, though it works to the guidelines of the Steiner Waldorf Early Years Group of Great Britain. At present there are four children in the kindergarten. There is space for about eight children.
The kindergarten is open on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9am to 1pm. Afternoon care from 1 pm unto 3.30 pm provided by arrangement.