Overdue: 5 days
Public benefits
The benefits which flow from the charity’s purpose include: the provision of a distinctive educational service to families who believe that their children will thrive in an environment in which a holistic approach is embedded. The pupils benefit by experiencing a coherent Waldorf curriculum delivered with a strong focus on creating balanced young
people who place equal value on artistic and scientific pursuits. The school has offered integrated education, free of any perception of religious background for 42 years and continues to contribute to the widening of perspectives of the younger generation. As much as 50% of our current roll is comprised of children who have been withdrawn from the mainstream schooling system because they were perceived to be either failing or stressed. We believe this school offers an opportunity to turn one’s educational experience around. For those children who come to the school through their parent’s active choice at school age, it provides a rich, multi modal way of learning which allows them to fulfil their potential. We operate an income based assisted place scheme, as the school’s ethos endeavours to make the education accessible to all, regardless of income. The school provides a wider public benefit in that its engagements with local schools, colleges and universities provides students and teachers of education with a real example of a different form of education in action. We have regular visits from students and so feel we are contributing to the wider educational landscape. The public benefit is evidenced through parent testimonials, available to view on the school’s website or Facebook page and continuous positive feedback from parents and families to the school. Particularly in the case of transfers from mainstream schooling, the increased well being and achievement of the pupils is recognised by both staff and families, through regular consultations and end of year reports. This purpose does not give rise to any harm. The charity’s beneficiaries are its pupils, the parents of theses pupils and the employees of the charity. The only private benefit flowing from the charity’s purpose is that all employees, working 16 or more hours per week, who have children at the school, receive free places for them. This is incidental and necessary as it contributes to the advancement of Steiner Waldorf education in NI as the payment of minimum wage to teachers and support staff, could increase the charity’s turnaround of staff. Allowing the school to recruit those professionals whose children benefit incidentally from the education offered, enables the school to fulfil the necessity to recruit teachers and staff, who are suitable qualified and committed, in the medium to long term, to the purposes of the charity. A free place for staff children is a private benefit which is outweighed by the benefit to the beneficiaries.
... [more] [less]What your organisation does
The schools vision is to deliver the full range of the Waldorf curriculum to the children of the school. The core values of the school are to deliver a sustainable, inclusive education to the children of the school in a professional way. On a day to day basis this involves delivery of the curriculum from preschool all the way to seventeen year
olds. The school prides itself on delivering a unique curriculum which has at its heart a deep respect for the individual, a humanitarian outlook and a merging together of the artistic and scientific traditions. Traditional crafts are taught throughout the curriculum from knitting and weaving to green woodworking and blacksmithing. We are academically non-selective and cater to a wide range of abilities. Science is delivered from a phenomenological beginning to a clear practice of the scientific method of enquiry, with attention always given to the stories of the scientists involved.
... [more] [less]The charity’s classifications
- The advancement of education
Who the charity helps
- Adult training
- Children (5-13 year olds)
- Parents
- Preschool (0-5 year olds)
- Youth (14-25 year olds)
How the charity works
- Arts
- Community development
- Education/training
- Playgroup/after schools
