Last week I experienced one of those parenting moments that will be eternally burnt into my memory forever: the day my first child started school.

In the months leading up to this event I wondered many times how Master C would go, whether he was ready; should I keep him home instead? We had attended playgroup at this same Steiner School for a few terms last year in an effort to create an easy-enough transition for our little man, but there were some challenges I wasn’t sure we were ready for yet. And when I say “we”, I mean just that. The decision to send Master C to (Pre) Kinder at our not-so-local Steiner School was not an easy one. Let me share with you why, and how we reached our decision to move ahead all the same.

The decision to commute to a rural Steiner School

Our family reside just outside of the City of Melbourne, and my husband – “Big Daddy” – works close to the CBD. We have only the one car, which Big Daddy has use of pretty much full-time. Until recently I have been a very (VERY) nervous driver, having only just finally acquired my driver’s license a year or two ago at the ripe ol’ age of 36. It was, in fact, due to my determination to send our kids to a Steiner School that forced me out of my comfort zone to drive the 2 hour round trip journey to Master C’s playgroup last year. After attending the Spring Fair at this stunning rural school a year and a half ago, and getting a glimpse inside the classrooms, I couldn’t shake off the knowledge that THIS is where my children should be. Still, the prospect of such a commute terrified me. I had never before driven on the freeway by myself, let alone with 2 small children in the back. But after a few practice drives with Big Daddy last year, I gathered my courage and decided that we were going to do this thing. And we did! We made the commute up to the school once a week for playgroup for the first two terms of last year…but then we stopped.

We stopped mainly because playgroup was clashing with Baby J’s naps and it was very hard for him, and all of us, to spend two hours in the car every single week. I struggled with the knowledge that Steiner early childhood philosophy stresses the importance of a peaceful weekly rhythm; minimal to-ing and fro-ing with children in cars; more slow, leisurely time at home. It seemed counter intuitive to drag my children so far to attend a Steiner playgroup if in doing so we were causing imbalance and difficulty for all concerned. And yet…

The next step

Big Daddy and I have been scheming, and planning, and slowly laying the groundwork to shift our lives and home in order to be closer to this school that we have all fallen in love with. We have been living in the sometimes frustrating in-between, waiting with confident patience for the universe to align with our plans. A new job for Big Daddy, somewhere local-ish to the Steiner School, is a non-negotiable, as the commute to his current workplace would not be sustainable. It is our ideal to send our kids to the school we have chosen, however it was always in the back of my mind that should the universe have other plans for us, we will likely continue as we have been with a homeschool approach in the Waldorf tradition. Still, my preference would be for our kids to attend an actual Steiner School because, despite my greatest efforts, I will never be able to provide all the beauty, variety and expertise that an established Waldorf school can. It was because of this that I pushed through my fear of driving to take Master C to playgroup last year, with the long-term view of familiarising him with the school and his potential classmates, while having me there with him initially as support for the upcoming transition. And I am very glad we did that.

Knowing the right time has come to start Kinder

When we began playgroup last year, Master C had just turned 3. He had always been a bit nervous with other children and easily overwhelmed by the usual roughhousing of the louder kids. I worried then about how he would fare, once he turned 4.  In the Steiner system, “Kinder” is targeted at children aged 5, not 4, which is the typical entry ago for children in the mainstream system. This means that children in the Steiner system typically do not begin Year 1 until they are 7, which is in alignment with Steiner’s philosophies on human development in 7 year cycles. A “Pre-Kinder” year is offered at our local Steiner School for those children who are 4 years old, but this is strictly optional. Many would forego this year altogether, preferring instead to keep their young ones home, and only begin Kinder proper the following year once their child was 5. I knew all of this and wasn’t certain what path we would take until just a few months ago. We had our name down on the list for Pre-Kinder, but I thought I’d leave it closer to the time to see if the time was right for us all.

Over the past year since we started in Playgroup some amazing changes have happened for Master C, developmentally. He has really spread his wings and grown in confidence to a huge degree. He is much more comfortable being apart from me (tear!), he is more assertive and more tolerant of other children and their sometimes unpredictable behaviour. He has surprised me with his courage when approaching other children and asking them to play, and has made some progress in stating his boundaries to other kids. At the same time, Baby J is not so much a baby anymore! His naps are less of a hinderance and he is more adaptable to a bit of travel in the car. I have come a long way too with my driving confidence. All in all, the signs were saying that Pre Kinder was a go.

How Steiner Kinder is different

A week or two before school began, a letter arrived in the post addressed to Master C. He was very excited to receive it as he is not often the recipient of mail at our house, probably not surprisingly. He opened the envelope to reveal an endearing photo of his soon-to-be-Kinder teacher holding an enormous fish that he had (presumably) caught while out fishing, as well as a very sweet little handwritten note that read:

Dear Master C,

I am very happy to have you in my kinder this year. Let’s have great fun!

Love, T

We promptly put both of these on our fridge and there they still remain.

We received a separate letter, this one addressed to me, asking us to join in a special pot-luck (share plate) lunch on the grounds of the Kinder for new families joining that year, ahead of the start of term. It would be an opportunity to initiate to begin building a community with other school families, and to allow the young ones to get to know the classroom, and each other, ahead of the first day of school.

The Pre-Kinder children attend school just one day a week, a gradual first step toward the 3 day full Kinder program. They are not in a classroom of their own, but rather they are integrated with the 5 year olds, who are almost like the big brothers and sisters of the classroom that already know the ropes from their time there the year previous. Because of this, and the amazing power of learning through imitation, the new Pre-Kinder children need not be told how or when to do something, they simply follow the lead of the more senior children in the room, who are carried along throughout the transitions of the day with the help of song and verse, as is customary in the Waldorf early childhood classroom.

A typical day in a Waldorf Kinder

A typical day in a Waldorf kinder seeks to recreate a home-like environment, where the children may be participants in its “work” and embraced by its comforts. The morning often includes opportunities for the children to roll out the dough for bread that will be set aside to rise and then baked for tea in the afternoon, or to assist with cutting up the fruit for morning snack. Or perhaps instead they might choose to play outside and help feed the chickens, plant a few new seedlings in the garden, or help the teacher with some simple woodworking.

Then again, simply climbing or digging in the sandpit, or picking fruit from any of the numerous fruit trees in the playground and nibbling on a piece while playing hide and seek is the order of the day. Not long after, voices might begin to almost magically join together one by one, calling the children home to the meal table, a long wooden bench with individual small child-sized chairs are laid out for all, adults included. Once everyone is seated, a candle is lit, they all hold hands in a circle and a blessing is made giving thanks to Mother Nature for the gifts of this food from the earth.

Speaking of foods from the earth, a healthy lunch is made fresh each day in the kitchen — the centre of the classroom — consisting of vegetables, a grain of the day and often something like hummus or similar.  Additionally the school has a healthy food policy in which, wherever possible, only organic and/or biodynamic foods are offered up, and no processed sugar is permitted. Honey, however, flows freely :).

Circle time may follow snacktime filled with songs and verses the children love to repeat all season long. More freeplay before lunchtime and then a rest period after that, with each child snuggling up on the floor in their individual made-by-mummy nap mats. The teacher tells them a story, complete with wooden and woollen props as a few of the children drift off to sleep. After a rest, it might be time to do some colouring before those honey buns come out of the oven and it’s snacktime again! And then, before you know it, there’s mama at the door and its time to go home. When we parents arrive, the children are all huddled around the Kinder Assistant, several of them curled up on her lap contentedly, all calm and quiet as they lick honey from their fingers and their not-yet-finished honeybuns. They all seem happy.

Another reason Steiner Kinder is awesome

In our welcome letter we were encouraged to arrange a mutually agreeable time for the Kinder teacher to come to our home for a visit during the first few weeks of school. I had been anticipating this, as it is customary in the Steiner system for the Kinder teacher to visit them at home when a new child joins the class. This visit creates a link between the home and the classroom so that there is a seamless transition from the loving arms of the family home into the gentle care of the Waldorf classroom, and offers the child the opportunity to share any beloved toys or items in the home with his new teacher, thus creating the beginnings of a trust and bond. It also allows the teacher to observe the child in his own environment – relaxed, comfortable and at play on his own terms. This kind of information helps inform the teacher on how best to engage and support the child when he arrives at the Kinder. Master C loved having his teacher over to our house, showing off how high he can bounce on the trampoline and what he had been building earlier that day on his work bench.

The big day arrives

The night before the actual first day of school I’m pretty sure that I was more nervous than Master C was. He seemed decidedly unfazed. I packed and re-packed his school bag, ironed labels onto his clothes at the very last minute, left notes to myself stuck to the front door to ensure I hadn’t forgotten anything the next morning. The following day we set off on our 50 minute commute to the rural school, encountered no traffic whatsoever, with a sky that promised nothing but sunshine and warmth. Once we arrived at the school and we were welcomed inside, Master C took off to play almost immediately. The lunch the week previous had familiarised him with the play space and he seemed completely at home. The playground is characteristic of other Steiner Kinders – climbing structures made from gnarled branches and logs, a small working garden, a huge shaded sandpit with wheelbarrows, pot and pans, and a large chicken coop that is home to a complete family of chickens – rooster, hen and their 3 newly hatched chicks. There are plans in the works to also install a cubby house and a hand water pump later this term.

I wasn’t sure how Master C would go when it was time for me to depart, whether he might become upset; but he was COMPLETELY FINE. I lingered around for maybe ten minutes, as the other parents did as well, but saw that it was time to make my escape. He was sat very still on a blanket on the grass with the Kinder Assistant and a few other children, cradling one of the newly hatched baby chicks in a towel.  Barely a glance over the shoulder when I said I was heading off.  As I turned to go, I heard the Assistant murmur to Master C: “Ooh, look, she’s gone to sleep”, both of them peering down at the chick that he held so gently in his arms. I smiled and left with a happiness in my heart.

There were no tears that day from either of us, and he has loved all his days at school since. I am so grateful to have found this school that treats early childhood with the preciousness that it deserves, and I am grateful too to feel secure in sharing my child with educators that I know will cherish him the way that he deserves.