Steiner education

'We shouldn’t ask: what does a person need to know or be able to do in order to fit into the existing social order?
Rather we should ask: what lives in each person and what can be developed in him or her?
Only then will it be possible to direct the new qualities of each emerging generation into society.
Society will then become what young people, as whole human beings, make out of the existing social conditions.
The new generation should not just be made to become what present society wants it to become.'

Rudolf Steiner 1919.

Rudolph Steiner's approach
The following definition of Steiner Education comes the Freedom in education website.

Rudolf Steiner believed that education should be designed to meet the changing needs of a child as they develop physically, mentally and emotionally. He believed that it should help a child to fulfil their full potential but he did not believe in pushing children towards goals that adults, or society in general, believed to be desirable.

His approach was systematic, and appears to have been based on his own extensive experience of working as a tutor, and on his study of 'anthroposophy' or 'spiritual science'.

Here are some of its key points:

Up to the age of seven encourage play, drawing, story telling, being at home, nature study and natural things.
Do not teach children younger than seven to read.
Teach a child to write before you teach them to read.
Do not keep changing a child's teacher: allow one teacher to carry on teaching the same class for seven years.
Allow children to concentrate on one subject at a time - do history two hours per day for several weeks and then do geography for two hours per day etc.
Find links between art and science.
Engage with the child and make sure that they are enthusiastic about the material being covered.
Give a moral lead but do not teach a particular set of beliefs.
Encourage learning for its own sake. Do not just work for exams.