Steiner Education Australia

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Steiner Education Australia

The national body for 52 Steiner schools across the country. Our nationally-recognised curriculum is taught in independent schools across the country.

We support, advocate for, and represent an education that has shaped Australian classrooms since 1957. Steiner Education Australia is an incorporated body representing member schools throughout the states and territories of Australia.

08/09/2026

Have Steiner schools been acknowledged for our pioneering stand? Finally, yes.

Catholic Education Canberra and Goulburn (CECG) recently acknowledged Steiner education as they review their own approach to technology in schools.

“…although it has to be said that the Steiner education movement has been running integrated curricula in a low-tech environment for a long time and has often been criticised as anti-progress and old-fashioned. The new research showing how the brain works in learning that is driving programs.... now reveals it was on to something.“

The wider sector is now arriving at the same understanding. Thank you CECG for the acknowledgement. The evidence is in on the impact of technology and social media on young people.

Seventy years of Steiner education in Australia. Now on the record: we were on to something.

06/09/2026

Nishka Varghese is a multiple Steiner X, having attended five different Steiner schools across three continents in the course of her school journey. She is now studying Criminology, with plans to complete a degree in Law, at Melbourne University, and is enjoying a busy life style in theatre and music as well.

Nishka has been a long-term member of the Waldorf Wayfarers, the choral and performing troupe led by Judith Clingan AM which travels Australia and the world bringing original music to Steiner schools and communities.

In this podcast Nishka reflects on the common, unifying threads that underlie all the Steiner schools she has attended, including the main lessons and outdoor education camps which particularly inspired her. Most of all, she remembers the beautiful place of story-telling in the early childhood years, a place of joy and wonder that continually inspires her even now, and has given her a foundation for life.

📍 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts.

03/09/2026

Norway has just banned generative AI from primary schools. Screens are being replaced with printed textbooks.

Smartphones have been out of Norwegian schools since 2024.

The results? Studies have shown an improvement in student grades, a significant decline in playground and digital bullying, and a 60% drop in visits to psychological specialists for anxiety and mental health support.

In Steiner classrooms, this has been our practice for seventy years. Screens introduced late, thoughtfully, and only when developmentally appropriate. Not because we were against technology but because we were watching what unchecked technology was doing to childhood.

The world is catching up.

01/09/2026

They weren’t sandwiches. They were love.” A line that arrived, unbidden, during a conversation with her husband and stayed with Lisa Devine as a reminder of what happens when we’re willing to listen to what we already know.

Lisa is a psychologist, a priest, a eurythmist, and a youth worker. She has been active in many Australian Steiner schools for thirty years as what she calls a Relational Wellbeing Counsellor - working with the relationships that hold a school community together, and stepping in when those relationships become fraught.

Her approach is rarely to give advice. It’s to ask the right question, carefully, and at the right moment and then to trust that the person already carries the answer within them.

“Ultimately, I just do Steiner education in a different version,” she reflects.

Lisa shares stories from thirty years of holding space for people at the hardest moments of their lives, including a young man who came to her simply to say his uncle had died, and stayed only long enough to be heard. She reflects on her work with Emergency Pedagogy in the aftermath of the Bondi attack and the Victorian bushfires, and on what she has come to see as the simple and quietly radical truth at the heart of it all:
“When the unspeakable happens, all I have is ‘I’m with you.’ And that’s all you need. Being present is a lot.”

A considered, deeply human conversation with someone who has spent her working life in service of the belief that everybody matters.

📍Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Learn more about Emergency Pedagogy training in Australia this October: emergencypedagogy.org.au

25/08/2026

Congratulations to Norah Ajwad, whose magnificent self-portrait has been chosen for the Young Originals Exhibition — now showing at Gallery Central, North Metropolitan TAFE in Perth, WA.

Norah completed her primary years at West Coast Steiner School in 2024. To have her work selected at this early stage of her artistic development is a genuine recognition of her talent and a lovely reflection of the strong creative foundations laid during her Steiner years.

A wonderful moment for Norah, her family, and the West Coast Steiner School community.

The exhibition is open now. If you’re in Perth, it’s worth a visit.
Read more: steinereducation.edu.au/news/west-coast-steiner-school-alumna-in-the-young-originals-exhibition

📍 West Coast Steiner School

23/08/2026

TONIGHT — Andrew Hill on the 100 Days of Peace. Join online from 9.00–9.15pm AEST.

Steiner Education Australia CEO Andrew Hill is speaking tonight as part of 100 Days of Peace — a national conversation hosted by Calm in the City, exploring how we build peace within ourselves, our communities, and the world we’re raising children into.

One hundred days. One hundred voices. One shared moment of stillness each evening — free, simple, and open to all.

If the work of peace begins in classrooms — and we believe it does — then this is a conversation worth being part of.

Join in: calminthecity.org.au/100daysofpeace

📍 Hosted by calminthecity

https://www.calminthecity.org.au/100daysofpeace

20/08/2026

Steiner Education Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which our 52 member schools learn, teach and gather. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, and to all First Nations peoples reading this today.

Kaya. Wanjoo Mandoon Bilya Koolangka Mia.

Hello, and welcome to Helena River Waldorf School, which sits on Whadjuck Nyoongar Country along the banks of the Mandoon Bilya (Helena River) in Western Australia. Here, Ngoolyarks (Black Cockatoos) roost in ancient Djarraly (Jarrah) trees, and Yaakin (Long-Necked Tortoises) swim in the cool waters of the Bilya. Among this beauty, the Koolungar (children) play and learn.

Over the past year, children, families and staff at Helena River have been deepening their connection to Country, Culture and Language through a series of authentic and meaningful experiences — thoughtfully woven into the school day and curriculum.

This is a living process that requires listening, reflection, and a genuine willingness to walk together on the path to Reconciliation.

With deep gratitude to Lucy Amall, Arron, Jacinda, and Bibbul Ngarma Aboriginal Association for their wisdom, care and guidance and to the whole Helena River Waldorf School community for the depth of this work.

Read the full story on our NEWS page or link in bio:
https://steinereducation.edu.au/news/

📍 Helena River Waldorf School

13/08/2026

Is this a record? Jim and Barb Henderson put all five of their children through the Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School in Warranwood, Victoria, and now all of their 12 grandchildren attend or have attended the school as well. What a commitment!

Jim and Barb later became teachers at the school, now retired, and in this episode they reflect on their long journey with Steiner education. One of their many reflections is that none of their children ever hated school. What an achievement in this age of disaffection among young people and school refusal!

They still live a creative life, nourished by nature, art and of course their growing extended family. As teachers they both reflect on the importance of being well prepared for the classroom, and building relationships of trust with students.

Jim’s inspiration was always to make his lesson material as dramatic as possible and his advice to teachers is “You’ve got to put your heart into it. You’ve got to make it come alive!”

📍 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your bodcasts.

02/08/2026

Creation Story: Memories of Milkwood. 💛 “It was very emotional. It was the first time I’ve been back to the Scout Hall since class one.”

Lara Andropov was one of the founding students of Milkwood Steiner School in Darwin. Twenty years on, she has returned — and now leads Milkwood’s After School Care program.

In this week’s Steiner Voices XYZ, Lara shares her memories of the school’s earliest days: a school that began in a Scout Hall, where the furniture had to be packed away every afternoon and set up again the next morning. A kindergarten in what was essentially a storeroom. A violin teacher, Netanela Mizrahi, now the school’s principal, teaching in a windowless cupboard.

She speaks about the group of parents who wanted something different in Darwin, the Milkwood tree that gave the school its name, and the deep First Nations connection that has been woven through the school since before it had a building.

And she shares her own story of working with dyslexia and auditory processing - of leaving Milkwood, learning what mainstream schools do differently, and eventually returning to bring that experience back to the children she now supports.

A quietly beautiful conversation about founding, returning, and what a Steiner community becomes when people build it together.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts.

📍 Recorded at Milkwood Steiner School, Larrakia Country, Darwin.

01/08/2026

This October, educators and helping professionals across the country have a rare chance to train directly with Bernd Ruf — world expert in trauma recovery for children and youth, and founder of Emergency Pedagogy Without Borders, now active in 41 countries.

Grounded in Steiner education and trauma-informed practice, Emergency Pedagogy supports children, schools and communities through trauma, crisis and adversity — offering practical tools for resilience, connection and recovery.

Two intensives in Australia this October:

📍 Adelaide — Introductory Modules, 1–8 October 2026
Register: events.humanitix.com/certificate-in-emergency-pedagogy-crisis-intervention

📍 Melbourne — Advanced Modules, 10–16 October 2026
Register: events.humanitix.com/advanced-modules-certificate-in-emergency-pedagogy-crisis-intervention

Full information: emergencypedagogy.org.au

Hosted by Emergency Pedagogy Without Borders - Australia — a group of Australian Steiner educators inspired by their encounter with the international movement in Germany in 2024.

Address

Level 11, Suite 21, 809 Pacific Highway
Chatswood, NSW
2067

Telephone

+61294112579

Website

http://www.steinereducation.edu.au/

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