Teaching Method | Max Stibbe Waldorf based teaching methods

Curriculum and Teaching Methods

“Class” teacher approach

A Max Stibbe class resembles a family, as we follow the Waldorf practice of a teacher staying with the same group of children throughout primary school. For example, a teacher who takes Class 1 will move up to Class 2 and so on, until the children complete Class 7.

As a teacher keeps the same class for several years, the teacher and children develop an intimate understanding of one another. The children, as a result of feeling secure in a supportive and long-term relationship, are better able to learn. The teacher turnover rate is very low at Max Stibbe, which enhances a sense of continuity and stability. This in turn has improves MaxStibbe’s reputation as being one of the leading schools in the country.

Curriculum

A distinguishing feature of Max Stibbe's Private School is the breadth and depth of the curriculum.
The Waldorf curriculum is designed to be responsive to the various phases of a child’s development. The relationship between learner and teacher is, likewise, recognised to be both crucial and changing throughout the course of childhood and early adolescence.

The main subjects, such as history, language, arts, science and mathematics are taught in main lesson blocks of two to three hours per day, with each block lasting from three to five weeks.

The total Waldorf curriculum has been likened to an ascending spiral: subjects are revisited several times, but each new exposure affords greater depth and new insights into the subject at hand.

The typical Waldorf curriculum is likely to look as follows:

Primary Class R to 3

This is the Foundation Phase, and it reads like an adventure story, filled with characters with which one can identify when learning to read, calculate and compute. Even during free play, characters like "Minus" and "Divide" act out their roles.

• Pictorial introduction to the alphabet, writing, reading, spelling, poetry and drama.
• Folk and fairy tales, fables, legends, Old Testament stories, African tales.
• Numbers, basic mathematics processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication
and division.
• Nature stories, house building and gardening.

This is the Intermediate Phase, and the time during which numeracy, literacy, life skills and arts and culture are deepened and enriched by artistic geometry, map drawing, geology, nutrition, gardening, building and construction, camps, outings, adventures, music, drama, movement and exploration.

• Writing, reading, spelling, grammar, poetry and drama.
• Norse myths, history and stories of ancient civilizations, African mythology.
• Review of the four mathematical processes, fractions, percentages and geometry.
• Local and world geography, comparative zoology, botany and elementary physics.

This is the Senior Phase, which links up with the last phase of the Outcome Based Education of the GET (General Education & Training) band of the Gauteng Department of Education & Training.

• Creative writing, reading, spelling, grammar, poetry and drama.
• Medieval history, the Renaissance, world exploration, African and some European
history and biographies.
• Geography, physics, basic chemistry, astronomy, geology, biology and mathematics.

The subjects are grouped, and comply with the learning areas required by the Gauteng Department of Education & Training, ie the following:

• First and second language, literacy and communication
• Mathematical literacy, mathematics and mathematical science
• Design and Technology
• Human and social sciences
• Life orientation
• Natural science
• Arts and culture
• Economics and management science

Special subjects also taught include:

Handwork: knitting, crochet, sewing, cross stitch, basic weaving, toy making
and woodwork. Copperbeating in Class 8