Welcome to the Imhoff Waldorf School web site
OUR SCHOOL
We are a small, community orientated school offering holistic and creative education. The Imhoff Waldorf School is a registered Non-Profit organisation.
We have a Play Group, a Kindergarten and a Primary School from class one up to class seven.
WHERE ARE WE?
Our school nestles amongst the trees, providing a rural experience not often found within our present urban environment. We are situated on the Imhoff Farm off Kommetjie road, on the way to Cape Point, in Cape Town, South Africa. We are 10km from Fish Hoek, Scarborough, Simonstown, Masiphumelele and Noordhoek, and within walking distance of Kommetjie and Ocean View.
WHAT IS OUR TEACHING ETHOS?
The teaching methods at the Imhoff Waldorf School are based on the philosophies of Rudolf Steiner, and we are one of hundreds of Steiner schools that are found throughout the world. We nurture innate resourcefulness and imagination, and emphasize discipline from within. We integrate subject skills and have a dynamic curriculum that meets each age group at their level of development.
Concern for the environment and a sense of responsibility towards other people is at the center of our ethos.
We embrace diversity within the richness of our curriculum and encourage tolerance of others through team work.
Art, craft, music and singing permeates the school.
Games are integrated into lessons ensuring that the children love coming to school. Camps and outings are provided throughout the year.
HOW DO WE EMBRACE THE COMMUNITY?
School fees pay for our basic education needs only. Our parents help in many ways to provide the rest. This encourages a sense of true community.
Apart from the parents paying their school fees, the Imhoff Waldorf School Fund Raising body raise overseas sponsorship for the education needs of children from previously disadvantaged communities. This has, so far, proved extremely successful. More financial help is however needed to expand this outreach programme to ensure that our school is inclusive of all and that acceptance into our school community is not purely for the privileged. For more information about how you can sponsor a child from a previously disadvantaged community, please read of our Imhoff Waldorf Godparent Support Initiative.
The school is held by a group of trustees & the College of Teachers. It is managed by both teachers and parents.
Philosophy
Waldorf schools have a unique and distinctive approach to educating children, aiming to enable each stage of growth to be fully and vividly enjoyed and experienced. They provide a balanced approach to the modern school curriculum. The academic, artistic and social aspects, or ‘head, heart & hands’, are treated as complementary facets of a single program of learning, allowing each to throw light on the others.
This is implemented by using art as a practice, and language to develop the feelings, by nourishing the children with the rich heritage of wise folk tales, histories, fairy stories, poems, music and games that are part of our world civilisation. This creates the cultural atmosphere in which the children are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, nature study, geography, science, languages, music and other subjects.
Steiner designed a curriculum that is responsive to the developmental phases of childhood and the nurturing of the child’s imagination in a school environment. Steiner thought that schools should cater to the needs of the child rather than the demands of the government or economic forces, so he developed schools that encourage creativity and free-thinking. His teaching seeks to recognise the individuality of the child and through a balanced education, allows them to go into the world with confidence.
The need for imagination, a sense of truth and a feeling of responsibility – these are the three forces which are the very nerve of education.
Rudolf Steiner