The Times Education Supplement has an article about the applications for free school status by Steiner schools. It says:

The Steiner approach emphasises the importance of practical crafts such as woodwork, book-binding and knitting, while students spend less time learning ICT skills.

Such free-school proposals appear to undermine the Governments stance that schools should be teaching a more traditional knowledge-based curriculum.

Steiner schools are based on the teachings of Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who founded anthroposophy, which promotes the belief that all humans possess an innate spirit or soul, through which a person can connect to a spirit world via inner development.

The British Humanist Association said it had serious concerns over what would be taught in the Steiner schools, given that free schools have considerable freedoms over their curriculum.

For more on this, see our previous posts. We’ll be discussing a proposed Steiner school in Suffolk at our next meeting.