Curriculum: A Primer

Edge Hill School is a member of the Waldorf Early Education Association of North America.

Edge Hill is part of a world-wide educational movement with a highly developed curriculum and professional commitment to teaching the whole child in an artistically and academically rich environment.

KINDERGARTEN

Edge Hill’s kindergarten is a beautiful environment in which your child’s natural curiosity and wonder can be fostered. Great care is taken to surround the children with as many life-filled experiences as possible including free play, singing games, stories, puppet shows, crafts, baking, gardening, eurythmy, painting, and beeswax modelling. Daily, weekly and seasonal rhythms are illustrated in storytelling and song, painting and crafts, creative play and practical tasks – encouraging confidence and enthusiasm.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Designed to engage the whole child, Edge Hill’s grade school lessons are cross-curricular, engaging artistic, musical, social, mathematical, linguistic and movement skills simultaneously. Students produce work of high academic and artistic quality during intensive main lesson blocks, and at the end of each schooling year take home a collection of textbooks that they have created themselves.

The curriculum is structured around the main lesson, a concentrated daily two-hour session in which one subject is the focus. When one topic has been fully explored (approx. four weeks), a new main lesson block is introduced. The subjects for these main lessons are set out in a curriculum designed to meet the needs of children at each stage of development, and include language, mathematics and a variety of academic skills. During the main lesson students have time to enter into each subject in depth and to approach it in a variety of ways, their work enlivened with poetry, painting, sculpting and drama. Thus, intellectual learning is always combined with artistic, rhythmical, and practical work.

Subjects requiring regular repetition are taught in shorter lessons. Afternoons are devoted to activities that are more social and “hands-on.” The challenges of handwork, music, painting, gardening and games are vital parts of a complete education. At all times, a strong foundation for academics skills is built to further confidence and a life-long love of learning.

As students progress through the grades, they create work of increasing sophistication and craftsmanship, building upon many years of holistic learning and demonstrating excellent learning habits and capacities. Through Waldorf schooling, they become confident, self-motivated, and well-rounded learners. Students who complete their course of elementary-school studies at Edge Hill are well-prepared to meet the academic and social challenges of secondary school.