Learning at Tarremah

Our teaching aims to develop the whole child. That means it’s built around three distinct stages of development: the willing, the heart, and the head.

In the willing, a familiar environment encourages play and practical connection. For the heart, imaginative themes provide a rich foundation for learning. And lastly, the head, where academic subjects unfold through thought-provoking, experiential lessons.

In early childhood, Tarremah is a sanctuary of storytelling, cooking, arts, crafts, and play. Going forward, an organic rhythm guides the way each day, season, and year unfolds. It is a rhythm that responds to the physical world students immerse themselves in.

Each stage provides meaningful and creative learning experiences. An emphasis is placed on trusting relationships that are built on respect and a deep understanding of every child. By providing a community of loving support, we nurture every child through their school years.

We are often told, at a college level, that our students are most likely to ask questions that the other kids in the classrooms are probably wishing to ask but were too afraid.

Brett - Secondary Teacher

Early Childhood

The journey with Tarremah Steiner School often begins when parents and their young children attend a Steiner playgroup. A warm homelike environment creates a peaceful sanctuary, encouraging play and welcoming discussion. Children attend kindergarten from aged three and a half to six, developing loving relationships with their teachers and other children.

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Primary

Throughout the primary school years, the Class Teacher remains with the class developing a relationship of confidence, security, and trust. The Steiner curriculum provides rich and meaningful themes as a basis for learning, as well as specialist lessons in music, craft, languages Physical Education and gardening.

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Secondary

At this stage of their development, students are inspired to become independent thinkers. Teachers work to foster a strong sense of self in their students, and with it, the ability to become an active contributor to society.

A Class Guardian guides this journey, working collegially with passionate specialist teachers. As well as being academically rigorous, the content is artistically enriched and thought provoking. Teachers, peers, and a strong community provide a supportive network for students.

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Tarremah offers classes from Early Childhood through to Class 10. Students are taught to standards approved by ACARA (The Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority).

Our curriculum is practical, academically rigorous, and artistic. Following the methods of social reformer and philosopher, Dr Rudolf Steiner, it engages the child with content and activities that resonate with their stage of development.

We recognise in each child a unique spirit, working to create an environment that allows that spirit to flourish. Each child’s inner life of imagination and moral striving is nurtured, along with an enthusiasm for academic challenges and physical activity.

The creativity and joyfulness of healthy children is encouraged through an artistic approach. Each student strives for personal success within a rich social and intellectual environment. This helps promote self-confidence, resourcefulness, initiative, and social consciousness.

Curriculum

Specialist subjects help us enrich our curriculum and the experiences of our students. Subjects include painting, form drawing, craft, woodwork, gardening, singing and recorder, physical education, German, and Japanese. Many of these subjects are taught by specialist teachers.

Outdoor Education

It is truly a privilege to live, study, work and play in an environment as beautiful as Tasmania and indeed Tarremah. We are circled by the majestic mountain ranges, sparkling waterways and forests in between.

It is valuable for children to experience a variety of these outdoor settings and allow themselves to be awed by the beauty and diversity of our environment. They can begin to make a connection to their place in this picture.

Outdoor Education at Tarremah aims for children to gain proficient skills in solving problems in a variety of outdoor settings.

This is brought about by TRUST – in the teacher, each other and themselves. The curriculum promotes this with initiative games, group challenges, problem solving, overnight sleepovers and journeys. Students will be working together and relying on each other both in the classroom and in isolated and challenging environments, further enhancing their teamwork and relationships within the class.

Outdoor Education sits snugly within the Steiner curriculum and within innovative mainstream programmes as well. It is experiential. It is real. It promotes wonder and delight. It is firmly rooted in the natural world and gets children working together.

However, Outdoor Education is not a stand-alone leaning area. It complements and strengthens many other areas of the curriculum such as botany, geography, history, zoology, geology and so on. The co-operation, listening and planning skills developed in Outdoor Education are very welcome across the curriculum.

The proposed activities take advantage of Tasmania’s abundance of natural delights. Overnight bushwalking will be introduced as a life-long recreational activity. Activities and venues are chosen that afford opportunities for the class to extend themselves and cosy shelter if the weather becomes challenging. Care will always be taken to provide an experience that does not deter further participation in the outdoors. Specific venues may vary depending on weather conditions, curriculum outcomes for the year, student numbers, class make-up and expertise of leaders.

The proposed programme slowly builds a child’s confidence and skills over 8 years, consolidating their learning from Class 3 to Class 10. It is hoped that the Class 9 programme, in particular, will meet the needs of teenagers who are craving new things while encouraging students to become more self-reliant. Their heads and bodies are full of questions about what’s possible, where they fit into the world, and above all, their social relationships. Such a programme, being the only one of its type in Tasmania, is a very important aspect of the developing child’s educational experience at Tarremah.

Specialist Subjects

Art Therapy at Tarremah

Art Therapy is for every student, especially the ones who are experiencing difficulties in their learning or life. With painting as a non verbal way of expressing themselves, students could be met in their inner struggle, and be supported with the healing and balancing effect of colours (easing their inner challenges and stimulating their potential to digest knowledge and life events).

Extra Lesson at Tarremah

The Extra Lesson is a movement based intervention owing to the work of Audrey McAllen and the developmental and pedagogical insights of Rudolf Steiner. The Extra Lesson is based on the understanding that disruptions to early motor/sensory development can make it tricky for children and young people to attend and learn in the classroom and respond to social demands in the playground. Students partake in 1:1 weekly sessions during which time they engage in movement, painting and speech activities as a means of completing missed developmental experiences.

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At Tarremah, the role of Learning Support is a very diverse role which requires us to help identify, assess, support, monitor and evaluate students’ specific learning needs, in collaboration with other staff members. We collaborate with teachers in areas including organisational skills, literacy , maths and behaviour management. We support classroom teachers with resources to support differentiation in their classrooms.

Direct student support may involve working in class alongside the teacher, or possibly require a level of intervention to support the student/ group of students to maximize their learning potential.

We currently run a number of groups utilizing Learning Support so we can make 3 way splits in classes to extend literacy skills in each group and the children are very responsive to these formats.

At Tarremah we have additional approaches to support students who may be challenged in their learning.

Learning Support

Technology

Students are asked to bring their own computer device to school in Classes 8, 9 and 10. These will be used to integrate digital technology in their learning.

The Steiner Australia Digital Technologies Curriculum can be viewed here.

Our BYOD requirements are:

Software Apps Used:

Google:

Class 8-10 Tarremah students can access via their school email account.

Microsoft Office 365:

MS Office 365 is free for Tarremah students.

Technology is introduced and explored through the manipulation of materials such as wood, leather, fibre and metals. Beating copper in Class 4, working with wood in Class 6 and forging iron in Class 8. Working with wood from Class 6 and beating copper in Class 4 brings to the children a sense of how materials have been used through the ages in connection with their studies of history throughout time.

The teaching of Information and Communication Technology (computers) commences in Secondary School as students develop the capacity to understand both the operational aspects of technological devices and how to properly manage the various demands that technology places upon us in our modern world.

Information and Communication Technology is introduced in Class 7 when students learn the mechanical aspects of how a computer works and develop skills such as touch typing and desktop publishing. Later, students learn about the current digital revolution and how it is reshaping our lives, as well as how to evaluate a source for validity and the importance of curating our personal online spaces when utilising social media.

As technology becomes utilised and embedded in the program as necessary, the pressures and potential addictions posed by technology are discussed. Students thereby learn to appreciate and utilise technology as a potent and useful tool, while remaining mindful of its capacity to dominate our lives.

Curriculum

Outdoor Education

Specialist Subjects

Learning Support

Technology

Software Apps Used:

Google:

Microsoft Office 365:

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