The Waldorf College

Waldorf College is an independent college for 16 - 20 year olds and is based in the Centre for Science and Art, a beautiful Victorian building and former Art college in Stroud.   The College has been developing and practising Experiential Education since 2000 with many students benefiting from its unique approach.  These students have gone on to working in a wide range of fields and/or have gone to University to study, without having to sit exams.

The curriculum is composed of interrelated projects with many having a strong practical basis, for example learning to make a forge, by digging a pit and building it up from clay.  Making the charcoal to fuel it and then heating and working the metal to make coat hooks and fire pokers. Through this activity the student is learning about the effect of heat on iron and steel, the carbon content of the different types of steel and which steel is better for this or that job depending on its flexibility, tensile strength and hardness.

This is how Experiential Education involves the student in doing and through the doing, reflecting and understanding in a way that they will not only remember but be able to apply themselves.

The students are encouraged to become responsible for their own learning and to help support each other and the college.  This takes place in the weekly review meeting where tutors and students work together to co-create a better learning environment.

Waldorf College is currently is working in close partnership with Stroud College to ensure that the educational approach can be offered more widely to young people who are seeking a different approach to education.  These are the Bridging the Gap courses that cater for the different ways that people learn and the experiential approach can help people with dyslexia and other learning barriers to reach their potential.

The longer term aim of Waldorf College is to support more courses for different age groups that are rooted in the experiential approach.  Bridging the Gap and Lighting Fires are two such courses for 16 – 18 year olds and 18-20 year olds respectively.

What is Waldorf College?

It is limited company and charity with a board of trustees with objective to work with young people through experiential education.

Waldorf College Vision: 

We want to see a world where people are awake to their responsibility and have the imaginative power to shape the future with integrity

Waldorf College and its work values:

  • the uniqueness of the individual
  • the importance of connected experiential education
  • that students and staff work together in a co-creative process

The College has based its education on three inter-related philosophical principles:

  • Experiential Education

  • Waldorf Education
  • Sustainability
 
Experiential Education

The curriculum at the Waldorf College has been devised so that students can participate in their own learning experience through doing practical tasks, artistic work and through their own observations and research. The tutors place great emphasis on developing an interactive and participatory learning experience within the group.  The students and staff endeavour to work collaboratively and co-creatively in the weekly review meeting where issues, about the social dynamics, the work and curriculum can be discussed and resolved.

“Experiential Learning is the process of actively engaging students in an experience that will have real consequences. Students make discoveries and experiment with knowledge themselves instead of just learning or reading about the experience of others. Students also reflect on their experiences thus developing new skills, new attitudes and new theories or ways of thinking.” – Kraft & Sakof

Waldorf Education

Waldorf Education was developed by Dr Rudolf Steiner with a group of teachers in 1919 and is now a worldwide movement of 958 schools ‘that espouse and promote universal human values, educational pluralism and meaningful teaching and learning opportunities.’ (Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, UK)

Education at the Waldorf College is based on Steiner/Waldorf education and is age appropriate for the 16 – 20 year old age range.

“We shouldn’t ask: what does a person need to know or be able to do in order to fit into the existing society? Rather we should ask: what lies within each person and that can be developed in him or her? Only then will it be possible to direct the new qualities of each emerging generation into society. Society will then become what young people, as whole human beings, make out of existing social conditions.” 

- Rudolf Steiner (in response to the impact on society of the First World War)

Sustainability

There is now abundant scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably and this generation of young people will have to live with and deal with the challenges that climate change and the depletion of natural resources will bring. True sustainability requires an understanding of natural cycles, human nature, social systems and economics.

 We aim to ensure that the students learn about natural cycles through their practical work on the land - gardening, farming, woodland and habitat management.  They learn to work together with the tutors to look at ways they can make a positive contribution to the community and the environment.

 They also have the opportunity to explore the different solutions offered by many organizations and individuals, both in the UK and abroad, that are working at community level and beyond.  Most recently, we have collaborated with the following organisations: the Makhad Trust, Embercombe, Stroud Community Agriculture, Pishwanton, the Life Science Trust and Stroud Valleys Project.


They also have the opportunity to explore the different solutions offered by many organizations and individuals, both in the UK and abroad, that are working at community level and beyond.

Most recently, we have collaborated with the following organisations: the Makhad Trust, Embercombe, Stroud Community Agriculture, Pishwanton, the Life Science Trust and Stroud Valleys Project.