Warrah School: A natural approach to educating autistic children

 

Connected to nature … Warrah School students in the playground.

Set on a 30-acre bushland site in Dural, Warrah School provides an idyllic environment for children with moderate to severe autism and other disabilities.

The school is part of the larger Warrah Community that includes a biodynamic and organic farm and a supported community for adults living with disabilities.

Founded 50 years ago, Warrah School offers educational and vocational programs in the Rudolf Steiner tradition of learning, which addresses three key elements of human development – thinking, feeling and activity, incorporating the connection to and healing power of nature.

Growth experience … Warrah student in the sensory garden.

“We have recently developed a new curriculum on the leading edge of special needs education,” Principal Jan Fowler says, “students thrive when they have a connection to the natural world and can see the transformation process revealed to them through working with natural materials, such as wood, wool and fibre and the earth.”

With almost 1000 trees on the property, fruit and vegetable gardens, and abundant wildlife, the school makes the most of its beautiful environment “to do something purposeful and meaningful,” she says.

“Instead of teaching literacy and numeracy through books — a passive approach — we engage them in a range of practical tasks.”

Students learn traditional crafts, such as spinning and weaving wool on a loom and turning wood on a lathe to create products of use for the Warrah and local community. They also participate in growing the farm’s fruit and vegetables, which they then harvest and learn to cook with. 

Skills-based learning … students helping in the Farm Shop.

In the community’s Farm Shop, students measure, weigh and pack produce for the co-op boxes; acquiring computational and organisational skills while performing a useful job that fills them “with great pride and independence,” Ms Fowler says. 

Manual activities help students “find connection and meaning,” she says: “You can see the A-ha! moment when they realise that they are creating something; it gives them joy and the sequential process provides the learning once realised in an end product.”

And a lot of incidental learning. “The skill that’s required to set up a loom, in terms of getting the quantity of wool, creating the design, colour and being supported to deliver quality workmanship, is an amazing process that encompasses artistry, mathematical calculations and even the biology and growth cycle of the sheep,” she says.

Creative learning … Weaving on a loom, requires knowledge of design, maths and biology.

“We work with technology too but there is so much research that supports the premise that developing the capacity to work with hands fosters the capacity for thinking.”

The rhythms and routines of old-fashioned farm life are a calming influence on autistic children, who often suffer from crippling anxiety, she says, and it equips them with knowledge and skills that can lead to a meaningful job after leaving school.

“We see the farm as a unique gift to Warrah but particularly for the students. They see the cycle of the year, experience the impact of weather, seasons and rainfall,” she says, and “experience food from farm to table.”

Another benefit is a healthier diet, she says, explaining that autistic children can be very fussy eaters but after a season working in the strawberry patch, they are often eager to taste the strawberries and vegetables they have cared for and find they love them.

Learning to cook in the school’s brand new wheelchair accessible kitchen has a similar impact on their eating habits and is an essential skill, Ms Fowler says.

Life skills … Warrah students learn to cook healthy meals.

Over the course of the program, students learn to prepare a range of simple, healthy meals from soup and casseroles to baking their own bread and, like all kids, “they love making birthday cakes,” she says. 

Teaching life skills is at the heart of the Warrah School mission, she says: “We strive to give them as much independence as possible and share experiences. Sharing a simple meal, going to the shop and buying food ingredients, paying and getting change, learning to clean up after cooking, learn to make a bed, do their laundry. We’re always preparing them to live in the community and realise their potential.”

The after-school program for senior students is an important component of transitioning older children to adulthood, Ms Fowler says.

She says students tend to be anxious about the prospect of leaving the school but through the program’s social activities and supported work experience they gain “a platform and the confidence to step out into the wider world.”

Students receive workplace readiness training via an onsite TAFE course and by attending Supported Employment Centres before being placed with local employers and volunteer groups.

“We had a young student who was passionate about books. We worked with Redfield College in Dural, who took him in for work experience in their library, and as a result he got employment with the council library,” Ms Fowler says.

Other former students help out at the local Bunnings nursery, another is a barista and one particularly “happy, outgoing” student cheers the residents at a nearby aged care home with his regular visits.

The best part of her job is seeing students flourish, Ms Fowler says.

“We focus not on ability but on capacity and we’re always striving to help them master skills. Today, we have a group of students doing horse riding at the local stables. It’s a very carefully thought-out process: they practice sitting in the stable, putting on a helmet, putting on boots and eventually they get to ride and they love it.

“We have a strong relationship with Vision Valley Camp at Arcadia and the students do canoeing, abseiling and rock climbing. 

“We’re so proud of what they’ve achieved. It’s about building physical strength but also overcoming challenges knowing you will be supported, which builds trust.

“Some of our greatest achievements are seeing them become independent, achieve outcomes they never thought possible and getting joy from connection. 

“A meaningful, purposeful life is our goal for each student – becoming the best they can be,” she concludes. 

Imagine dragons — learning the Glenaeon way

A vivid green dragon extends its wings and breathes a volcanic gust of flame before settling quietly on the school book page. Is this a scene from Harry Potter? Maybe the opening frames of a new Disney blockbuster? Perhaps a Year 3 arithmetic textbook as envisioned and hand-drawn by the student herself?

Where imagination takes flight … Glenaeon primary school students create their own textbooks.

If you guessed the last, you may already be familiar with the central pillars of the Steiner teaching method: creativity, imagination, experiential learning and a holistic approach to education that aligns with the developmental stages of childhood.

“We have a picture of child development that lies behind what we do. At each stage of the school journey there are specific ways that we work with the child to match what we have observed over time to be the ways children learn,” says Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner School principal Andrew Hill. “It produces happy, adjusted children because we’re meeting the child’s specific needs at each stage.”

This developmental emphasis is seen most distinctly in the early years of Steiner schooling when children are encouraged to learn through active play and imitation. Singing, dancing, movement and story time are complemented with practical skills like knitting, cooking, sewing and gardening. Learning is almost entirely a physical activity at this stage with formal literacy and numeracy lessons delayed until students are intellectually ready.

Organic education … Glenaeon students enjoy an outdoor lesson in the school’s garden.

“They go through a change around the age of seven when they start to learn through more abstract thought, rather than concrete bodily experience; they start to learn through imagination and images. That’s why they’re so receptive to stories and the arts,” Mr Hill says.

This is followed by the third stage of learning when children acquire conceptual and analytical skills, Mr Hill says. “Gradually, the rational intellect unfolds, around 10-12, that’s when they start to make connections between things. They can see cause and effect and that becomes the way they learn as adults.”

“The broad benefit of a Steiner education is learning in ways that are more natural. I like to think of it as like organic farming. It’s organic education. We fit in with the child’s natural rate of growth,” Mr Hill says.

Learning through doing … active learning through creative pursuits is a hallmark of Steiner education.

In practice, this means the emphasis in the first years of schooling is on developing the foundations of learning through creative pursuits. One of the first activities is drawing, which leads into writing, which leads into reading.

As Mr Hill explains: “Children create their own first readers, handwritten and illustrated in Year 1. Teachers tell stories to build imagination and stimulate a creative understanding, which, in turn, is the foundation of comprehension in literacy. The research shows that they quickly catch up to, and typically surpass, students in other systems. Late is more: evidence from an international, peer-reviewed study shows that as a group, students from Steiner schools start reading later but then exceed the reading fluency of mainstream students who started earlier.”

Mr Hill says his personal experience bears out these findings, even in the occasional case where students appear to be worryingly slow to catch on.

“It’s a case of the Hare and the Tortoise: slow and steady wins the race. Like Finland, we don’t teach formal reading until around age seven and it takes another year or so before it kicks in. We had one girl who still wasn’t getting it when she was eight. She had all the elements in place, we’d measured everything. The parents were anxious but they trusted us and, eventually, just after age nine, she started to read. She went through a very gentle, natural process and by the time she was 10, she was reading ravenously. She’s now a pediatrician,” Mr Hill says.

“Not all children who are slow to read fall into this category of course, and students with learning issues are assessed and supported with a range of strategies.”

Theory and practice … the Steiner method complements a rigorous academic education with practical entrepreneurial skills.

Steiner education, also known as Waldorf education, is named for its founder, Austrian polymath Rudolf Steiner, who also developed the theory of biodynamic agriculture.

He established the Steiner movement in 1919 with the opening of a school at the Waldorf-Astoria factory in Stuttgart, Germany. The school was an immediate success and Steiner schools quickly proliferated throughout Britain and Europe.

In 1957, the movement came to Australia with the founding of Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner School. There are now more than 40 Steiner schools throughout Australia as well as Steiner streams in some public schools in Victoria and South Australia.

The Steiner method has some defining characteristics rarely seen in mainstream schools.

In the primary school years, students have one teacher throughout years 1-6. This approach is based on the Nordic model, Mr Hill says, and the aim is to create a secure, tightly-knit class community in which students are very well known to their teachers and to each other.

Immersive learning is another hallmark of Steiner education. School days begin with a two-hour “main lesson”, in which a broad topic is taught from a multi-disciplinary perspective for a period of three weeks. Teachers present the material with drama and artistry to capture students’ imaginations and inspire them to produce their own beautifully illustrated textbooks.

“Even with Maths they try to build the lesson around an imaginative story that is going to excite their students and keep their interest throughout. They’re learning all the standard Maths but it’s filled out with this wonderful rich imagination,” Mr Hill says.

Committed to developing global citizens, Glenaeon pioneered languages in primary school in Sydney: all students learn two foreign languages up to Year 6 and then choose one to continue learning in Years 7-10, after which it becomes an elective.

Global outlook … Glenaeon students learn German and Japanese in the primary years and choose one to continue studying in high school.

In primary school, students develop their human faculties first: drawing, handwriting, playing musical instruments, and importantly learning to use tools to make useful and beautiful artifacts in textiles, wool, wood and metal. The school calls its use of technology the Artisan program which builds practical and entrepreneurial skills. Digital technology on the other hand is eschewed until high school when ICT is integrated into learning. Natural materials are used as much as possible throughout the school.

Once students reach high school level, Glenaeon is not particularly different to a mainstream school because teenagers learn similarly to adults, Mr Hill says. However, the five foundational programs of Steiner education: Academic, Aesthetic, Artisan, Active Wilderness and Altruistic are intrinsic to all the years.

The effect of these programs is seen in Glenaeon’s excellent HSC results, its emphasis on the creative and performing arts and craftsmanship, its extensive outdoor education program and its deep emphasis on mutual respect and personal responsibility.

The school’s low incidence of bullying is consistent with research showing that bullying is a rare occurrence in Steiner schools generally. Mr Hill attributes this happy outcome to Glenaeon’s discouragement of competitiveness between students.

“It’s a very rigorous education but it’s done with this more positive relational quality of working with students and a class as a community. Students work and do well, not to beat other children, but to be their best and that has an effect on the mood in the classroom,” Mr Hill says.

Creative class … Glenaeon offers a holistic, child-centric education.

With its focus on creativity, wellbeing and self-reliance Steiner education is a child-centric pedagogy whose time has come, Mr Hill says. “Many schools talk about positive education these days but we’ve always been positive. Positivity is implicit in the method we use.”

“We pioneered a holistic approach to education that genuinely fosters the overall wellbeing of students on all fronts; recognising that a successful life is made up of a balance between intellectual growth, emotional maturity and a practical ability to do things in the world rather than a simplistic academic measure of competence. The ATAR is important as a measure of intellectual excellence, but the world is looking for more than just that as a predictor of personal and professional success.

“I’ve been teaching in different schools for 30 years. The greatest reward is seeing students grow and develop and, after all they work they’ve put into it, become the person they were destined to be.”

 

References:

Children learning to read later catch up to children reading earlier — Sebastian Suggate, Elizabeth Schaughency, Elaine Reese, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2013
https://web.uvic.ca/~gtreloar/Articles/Language%20Arts/Children%20learning%20to%20read%20later%20catch%20up%20to%20children%20reading%20earlier.pdf

Addressing bullying in schools: theory and practice — Ken Rigby, Australian Institute of Criminology, 2003
https://aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/tandi259