“Our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings, who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives.”

Rudolf Steiner, Founder of the first Waldorf School, 1919

What do our children need to be free human beings able to impart purpose and direction to their lives in an ever-changing world? Naturally, they will need many refined skills, but that is not all! Their skills must be formed around a well-developed sense of self and inner clarity, an inner compass that point one to their own True North.

But, what personal characteristics make for such an “inner compass” and is there a school experience geared to developing them in its students?

At the Alan Howard Waldorf School we believe that the international Waldorf School movement has done exactly that for over 90 years in some 60 countries on all continents. This is because the Waldorf method is geared to developing self-reliance, imagination, creativity, flexibility, tolerance and critical thinking in its students. Waldorf students learn to be responsible and active members of their communities and create solutions to small and big problems alike, facing the unknown with confidence based on self-knowledge.

To achieve this, Waldorf Teachers (trained and certified specifically in the Waldorf method) educate not only the child’s head (intellect) but also the child’s heart (emotional intelligence) and the child’s hands (practical skills). To this end, the Waldorf curriculum is designed to impart both breadth and balance during the educational experience. The Alan Howard Waldorf School incorporates a full range of the academic subjects and complements them with a variety of arts programming including painting, drawing, singing, playing an instrument, woodworking, handwork (i.e., fibre arts), Eurythmy (a movement art developed exclusively by Waldorf schools) and outdoor/environmental education. The faculty of AHWS is committed to the development of our students’ practical and artistic gifts right alongside their intellectual ones.

The Waldorf method is also a developmental approach to education; the stages by which the curriculum unfolds are founded upon the observable stages of child development.

Finally, Waldorf schools are nonsectarian. Values such as respect for self and others, universal to all religious and spiritual traditions, are upheld in the classrooms. Spiritual leaders of many cultures are studied through the history of world civilizations. The question of religion is left strictly to the family.

The Alan Howard Waldorf School is committed to equal-opportunity education and welcomes families of all ethnic, social and religious backgrounds.