The Roseway Waldorf School lies perched at the top of Alverstone Hill, a conservancy, just ten minutes outside Hillcrest, surrounded by farmlands, fresh air and overlooking green valleys and hills. The school includes a Kindergarten, primary and high school.

Our Vision

Our vision is to create a healthy community
in our country where children
learn with enthusiasm
strive to become independent, creative thinkers
are free to find their true destiny in life
work with purpose, reverence and love
are confident that they will make a difference in the world.

Roseway Waldorf School
P O Box 503, Hillcrest, 3650
Tel: 031-7655309 Fax: 031-7655424 E-mail - roseway@mweb.co.za

Class 12 Projects

Francis playing the violin

A school comes of age

The presentation of the projects takes place in the school hall to parents, teachers, pupils, both past and present, and to the delight of many grandparents.

The school, situated in Alverston, started in February 1985 through the desire of a group of parents in Durban for Waldorf education for their children.

Janine Hurner, a Waldorf teacher from Cape Town, was invited to help establish the school. The school has grown over the years and this year the first Class 12 at Roseway presented the culmination of their years of study: their project.

Project
The project has three different components: practical, theory and the presentation evening. The project is always a challenge for the pupils. Initially, at the end of Class 11, they are faced with the decision of which topic to choose. The current class chose a variety of topics from the violin to quilting, restoring a car to marketing a product.

Next the pupils had to accumulate information, research the topic and write up a book that they had made and bound themselves. The theory is accompanied by the practical component: learning to play the violin, quilting a memory quilt. The dedication and focus required is matched by the painstaking research and finally the outcome is presented in the evening.

Having survived all this and eloquently spoken of the insights they had gained, the growth in understanding, commitment, accomplishment, hard work and themselves, the class await the assessments of the projects along with their marks for the year. These are done by a group of high school teachers and each learner is assessed on the basis of their own abilities and talents.

From the fourth term the Class 12s enter Class 13 where they begin to prepare to write their matric for the next year. The project experience has provided them with the concepts of hard work, study, concentration and achieving the goals set. This small class of pioneers has one last task to complete in the paving of the way for the rest of the ever-growing high school component of Roseway.

Waldorf education is a unique and distinctive approach to educating children practised worldwide since the foundation of the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919. The Class 12s have enjoyed a holistic and creative education that has equipped them to become critical thinkers able to see various subjects within a comprehensive vision of humanity - our current cultures, our past, our environment and the values and ideas required to ensure a future that builds on the best within each of us. These high ideals are probably needed now more than ever before. Waldorf education sees children as possessing a natural gift for imagination. This is nurtured through the teaching method and style used at Roseway where the children learn to present what they have learnt in an artistic form. Poetry, drama, music, drawing, painting and modelling are integral parts of learning, as are design and practical skills in handcraft and handwork.
In respecting each child's unique character and range of abilities, Waldorf Education encourages children o be themselves to work to the best of their abilities and to help one another. This atmosphere creates the very tools necessary for building a better society and avoids intellectual competition, which can be detrimental to a process built up at Roseway by ensuring that in every subject the children can gain a sense of belonging to an interrelated whole. The children learn that they have a responsibility to their families, their friends and their environment. A wonderful bond has been established between the teachers and pupils at Roseway where respect grows and concern and interest continues far into life. This is the way in which the school becomes a genuine experience and preparation for life and not just a place to test information. The school builds memory through experience and recall not through mindless repetition.
Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the Waldorf Schools, wrote: "It is important that we discover an education method where people learn and go on learning from life throughout their whole lives." This influenced the Roseway Waldorf School in adopting the following motto: "Creative learning for Life-long Learning".
Rudolf Steiner, Piaget and others recognised that a child passes through specific developmental stages. Different faculties, interests and problems arise at different ages. The curriculum at the Waldorf School is based upon this understanding. A versatile creative personality is formed through the harmonious interaction of intellect, emotions and volition.

Steiner agreed on four conditions when he established the first school:

• the school should be open to all children,
• it should be co-educational,
• it should be a unified 12-year school, and
• the teachers should take a leading role in the running of the school.

These conditions continue in approximately 600 Waldorf schools in 32 countries.

Roseway is no exception and the school prides itself on offering a unified and distinctive education that is accessible to all learners. Personal attention and a close relationship with parents, who are their child's primary educators, are the hallmarks of a successful Waldorf School.

Janine Hurner dreamed that one-day, a full primary and high school, supported by a kindergarten, would be a reality for Roseway. Sadly Janine Hurner passed away on August 7 1994.

The Class 12's complete a comprehensive curriculum, present the efforts of the years of work on their individually chosen projects and study for their matric exams the following year.

With their creative imagination and critical thinking, the children at Roseway are well prepared to tackle the rigours of study and relating varied information I a concise and clear manner that appropriately answers the question. The insights that the children have gained in the subjects through experience and personal creative expression are the very outcomes that OBE is trying to bring to education in South Africa.