IT'S "Enquirers' Morning" at York Steiner School, and a small group of parents has gathered to look at an alternative way of educating their children.
A couple have a child or children already in state school, and feel their needs are not being met. Another pair have pre-school children and are simply looking at everything available, including this more unusual option.
There's a lone dad whose child, a 15-week-old daughter, is presumably at home and cooing up at Mum from her cot. Dad is keen to investigate the pros and cons of Steiner – influenced, he says, by bad memories of being sent away at the age of nine to an extremely buttoned-up and lonely boarding school.
He says that if he and his wife decide Steiner is what they want (he seems very clued-up and positive about it already), then the family will probably move in from the sticks sooner rather than later to be closer to the school. Now that's forward planning.
We set off in an orderly line and pass piles of wellies and duffle coats, fleecy hats and scarves with pom-poms hanging on named pegs. The pink Mums' and Toddlers' room is womb-like. Tots play in a "home" corner and others simply run around.
In the kindergarten next door, children whose age ranges from three-and-a-half to six-and-a-half are involved in different activities – some messing about with blank-faced cloth dolls, others apparently making something with wood, and yet more chopping fruit (supervised, but with proper knives) for the morning snack.
Different ages seem to mingle contentedly. During the morning they will also play finger games, have "ring time", singing or talking in a circle. They'll also play outdoors for 40 minutes and listen to a story.
In The World According to Steiner, children's brains are not believed to be ready to read until the age of seven, although they are already writing by then. However, a child who joins Steiner able to read is not held back.
When kindergarten ends and more formal education begins, at six-and-a-half, children go into Class One, and have the same teacher until the age of 14. At the York Steiner School, the maximum class size is 25, but one class is as small as 10.
In Class One, 13 seven-year-olds are passing a ball around a circle, playing a game to reinforce the five-times-table. They then perform a party piece, reciting a poem about Jack Frost. Much of what goes on in the Steiner school is related to the seasons, whether in song, poetry or art.
In Class Two, they're in the middle of an English class, about fables. The Romanian-born teacher leads the 20 children in singing a German song about a butterfly, and a poem about winter, recited in English with actions.
The 23 nine-year-olds in Class Three are singing a counting song in German, and in Class Four, 10 children are working on fractions, which were only introduced to them two months ago, rather later than in a state school. They break off to sing the Cuckaburra song, and perform a poem called My Yellow Friend, which ends up with half the class giving the other half a piggy back ride.
In Class Five, 23 children are making clay models of pyramids, as part of a four-and-a-half-week intensive two hours a day spent on Ancient Egypt. During that time they have covered everything from jewellery making to woodcraft, Cleopatra, Tutankhamun, gods and goddesses, art, everyday life and mummification.
"I can't possibly teach them everything," says teacher Helen Mackfall. "So the children research different areas of the subject and give short presentations to the others. We don't test what's been learned, but follow-up notes and reviews show that the other children really engage and listen when one of their own group is doing the 'teaching'."
A recent Geography block included each child researching and giving a presentation about another place in the British Isles that they were familiar with through holidays or family ties.
While they cover the same ground as the National Curriculum, the work is not presented in the same rigid and prescriptive way; nor do these schools take part in SAT testing at seven, 11 and 14.
"We get to the same place, but by a different route and have more fun along the way," says Ms Mackfall. A close bond develops between class teacher and her group. "It's very hard to say goodbye after eight years. I'll need a break before I start at Class One again."
Young people from York Steiner School join other schools at 14, mostly state schools in the immediate area, where they have no trouble fitting into the system.
If plans go ahead for a state-funded Steiner Academy in Herefordshire, more could well follow, and Steiner schools would have to introduce SAT testing at 11 and 14, although the Steiner method of learning would still be used.
In Class Six, the two-hour intensive morning lesson is observation-based science, with various contraptions rigged up to explore light, sound, heat and magnetism. One boy explains to me very patiently why the ice-cream doesn't melt when you make Baked Alaska.
Class Seven is having a "two-week romp through the Reformation," says their teacher. The subject is again taught for two hours every day, and looks at both cultural and historical aspects of the period. Pupils confidently pipe up about why Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries. One boy, whose ambition is to be a professional footballer, says his favourite bit "is the blood and gore, the beheadings..."
Another lad volunteers that he has sometimes worried that his school is seen as "a bit weird," but as long as he can join in games of footie with his state school mates then he doesn't think about it too much.
Steiner education, at a brief glance, seems enchantingly old-fashioned and innocent. There are tensions, obviously, say staff. The children aren't angels, and discipline does have to be invoked, in the form of warnings then sitting in silence with a member of staff at lunch-time.
A couple of parents visiting this morning are anxious that their children's creativity and imagination are being, or may be stifled, by state school. "One problem is that, if parents have a child they feel is already being let down elsewhere, they may have unrealistic expectations of us," warns French teacher Rachael Culver Dodds gently.
The main political parties are now trumpeting the need for "diversity" and "choice", encouraging different philosophies in schooling. A Montessori school in Liverpool has just attracted state funding.
The philosophy of Austrian educator, writer and philosopher Rudolf Steiner does underpin all Steiner schools, but the thinking is very much buried underneath the day-to-day practicalities of encouraging the children to learn creatively, explore their world and achieve their potential while having fun, says Helen Mackfall.
"Often we are assessing them without them even knowing it. We don't obsess about filling in grids and ticking boxes. They may have learned something crucial in a song or planting something in the garden, for instance."
Steiner schools are not keen on TV or computers "as a way of just passing time", and expect parents to co-operate in keeping their use to a minimum. There's nothing 21st century about this place.
One mother said she didn't think much about the standard her daughter was achieving. "I once asked her teacher if she was doing okay, compared to state school standards. The school does actually buy in SAT papers and children have a go to gauge what the internal levels are. The teacher told me my daughter was 'doing just fine,' and I trusted that. I didn't need to ask her mark, and I doubt they'd have told me.
"What I see in my child is, to use a well-worn cliché, a well-rounded person growing up with a great curiosity about the world, and the ability to express herself through words, song, art and movement. She also really cares about younger children in the school and looks after them. I know it sounds a bit antiquated, but those are values I think should be cherished."
A recent feasibility study concluded that Steiner education should be available to a wider audience, and that, while Steiner schools could learn something new about teacher training and administration from the state sector, state schools had a lot to learn from Steiner methods.
Not everyone here is excited at the potential prospect of Steiner for All, though. "I think it's fair to say some people are nervous," says Helen Mackfall. "What if so many strings come attached to the deal that, in return for money and wider availability, we lose what makes Steiner special?"
sheena.hastings@ypn.co.uk
Steiner Waldorf Fellowship, www.steinerwaldorf.org.uk, email swsf.org.uk or call 01342 822115 .
York Steiner School is at www. yorksteiner.co.uk or tel 01904 654983 .

How Children Are Taught

Steiner schooling
There are 27 independent Steiner school in Britain and Ireland. They are charities, with parents paying contributions according to means. Around the world, there are almost 900 schools, plus many Steiner teacher training centres and early years facilities.
In several European countries, Steiner education receives public funding.
Key points of Steiner education include:
n Up to the age of seven, children are encouraged to play, draw, listen to stories, and look at and enjoy the natural world
n Children are taught to write before learning to read, with reading starting formally at seven
n From the age of seven, children stay with the same class teacher for eight years
n Children concentrate on one major teaching subject each day – two hours of history daily for several weeks, then geography, and so on – as well as other lessons
n Children are taught to find links between art and science
n Teachers engage the child's enthusiasm and creativity as far as possible in the subject being taught
n A "moral lead" is given, but no particular set of beliefs is taught
n Learning for its own sake is at the heart of the school, rather than simply passing exams
n Gardening and crafts are taught alongside more classroom-based learning
n Languages are taught from the beginning of kindergarten, which starts at the age of three and a half
n Steiner schools are non-hierarchical, with each school run by a "college" of staff which decides policy

Who Was Rudolf Steiner?

Steiner (1861-1925) was an Austrian philosopher, playwright, artist and educator, who founded a spiritual movement called anthroposophy, or "spiritual science". He believed that children's creative, moral and spiritual character needed as much nurturing as their intellectual capabilities.
His first school was founded in 1919, for the children of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory workers in Stuttgart, Germany. The educational philosophy was based on the notion that schooling should concentrate on the whole child, following developmental rhythms and using co-ordinated exercise called Eurythmy to stimulate the brain and imagination as well as the body.
After the First World War, Steiner was denounced as a traitor by Adolf Hitler for suggesting that Upper Silesia should be given independence.
Steiner fell into ill-health and died soon afterwards.