Melbourne Rudolf Steiner Seminar

24/07/2026

Our Term 3 Clay & Wellbeing online course has a new start date, it will start next Monday 27th July for 7 sessions, from 7-8.30pm. Clay is a wonderful creative medium that offers an opportunity for us to reconnect with the tangible, sensory, and deeply human dimensions of learning and wellbeing.

Our tutor, Tania Hungerford, has written an article in the most recent Seminar Conversations, our quarterly magazine. The title is Why Clay Matters: the Art of Sculpting, Thinking, Feeling, and Willing. You can visit our link-in-bio to read it.

The winter weather is perfect for clay modelling or sculpting, as young Steiner / Waldorf students who learn it in their school curriculum will tell you - their hands and even the clay are all warmed up in the process!

Visit our link-in-bio or visit https://teachsteiner.org/ClayandWellbeing to learn more and enrol from this course. Contact us if you have any questions.

21/07/2026

20/07/2026

'In the lecture course given by Rudolf Steiner in Sept-Oct 1920 entitled The Boundaries of Natural Science, GA 322, he asked ‘Who, in the child, is the mathematician?’ and he went on to say that this mathematician lives in every child, is initially asleep and needs to be awakened. He portrayed the process of a child’s learning mathematics as an awakening from sleep...'

The above is an article written by our tutor, Gordon Woolard, relating to his upcoming course 'Primary Maths through the Hands and Feet' in our most recent magazine, Seminar Conversations. You can access from our link-in-bio.

This course has a new start date: this Thursday 23rd July 7-9pm (Melbourne time). For 7 sessions, he will equip teachers with visible and tactile methods for the development of primary maths. This addresses the need of all children to inwardly picture number-relationships, and especially the needs of those who struggle to do this. An understanding of this approach enables teachers to create their own techniques.

This approach through the senses leads ultimately to the goals and learning outcomes that belong to each age group. It is an approach which lives ‘in the forces of the limbs that stream inward from the world-periphery so that the head awakens’. This outside-in path is, after all, the way of Waldorf education and that is the way of child development. It offers a richer experience as the human being who understands his or her arithmetising because it is inwardly seen; rather than just blindly follow routines.

We may come across children who struggle with maths, feel afraid of it and lose confidence, while others do well, feeling joy in the adventure of it, and even driven head-long to fanatic preoccupation with numbers, mathematical wizards but at a one-sided extreme in that they lack an all-roundness of skills and breathing of soul. How do we meet them in their development to engage them in a meaningful way?

If you're interested in exploring questions like this, we invite you to learn more in our Primary Maths through Hands & Feet online course, now being offered for the first time. Visit our link-in-bio for more information.

01/07/2026

In Term 3, the Primary Class Teaching online course will begin teaching the Class 1 curriculum. You also have the option to choose the Class 5 curriculum.

Enter the wondrous world of teaching children through the cultivation of imagination, rhythm, practical hands-on and creative activities. Learn about child development of the children at Class 1 / Class 5, and understand how the curriculum meet their needs.

Term 3 starts on 14th July 2026, Wednesdays from 7-9pm. For more details and enrollment, visit our link-in-bio or https://teachsteiner.org/Primary

16/06/2026

Participating in artistic work enables us to connect to ourselves as individuals and explore our inner life which shares its essential nature with the spirit. We develop new insights into who we are and are enlivened and renewed through the creative journey.

Neuroscience research and the study of neuroaesthetics reveals the transformative impact of the arts on wellbeing, learning, mental health, and healing.

This course invites participants into a healing, creative relationship with clay as a living medium. Clay engages the four foundational senses (touch, life, movement, balance), supporting will development, nervous system regulation, and embodied presence. Sessions combine hands-on clay work with reflective practice, offering tools for personal wellbeing and for use with children or groups in therapeutic and educational settings.

For further information, visit our link-in-bio, or our webpage https://teachsteiner.org/ClayandWellbeing; and contact us for further questions.

08/06/2026

During our recent intensive, student-teachers learned to teach P.E. for Classes 4–6, including the "Greek Olympics," common in Waldorf schools. Watching Class 5 during their "Greek Olympics," one notices that every child attempts all five ancient pentathlon events—running, long jump, discus, javelin, and wrestling.

While this may look like historical reenactment to outsiders, for Steiner/Waldorf , it addresses a critical developmental window. At ages 10–11, children are transitioning from the dreamy imagination of early childhood toward individual awareness. Their bodies often grow faster than their coordination can keep up, leaving them feeling awkward. These activities do not merely test strength; they actively teach integration, meeting the child exactly where they are physically and emotionally.

The Greeks had a term for this necessary integration: Kalokagathia (beauty + goodness). They believed virtuous character required a harmonious body. The pentathlon cultivates this wholeness before puberty sets in, translating physical skills into mental capacities. For instance, running trains the mind to follow thoughts to conclusion, and wrestling prepares one to debate against stronger opposition. These activities promote Enkrateia (self-mastery). In the long jump, a child must coordinate breath, arm swing, and takeoff timing perfectly. This is a rigorous exercise in attention.

All of these reflect Paideia: a foundational concept for developing humans for citizenship, morality, and culture via two pillars: Music & Arts, which shape inner life through emotion; and Physical Training, which forges discipline, courage, and endurance.

Plato warned imbalance damages character while Aristotle argued that without self-control forged in movement, rational judgment for virtue cannot develop. The body serves the will, and the will serves reason. Neglect either, freedom is lost.

The pentathlon is a training that helps Class 5 find their centre before moving to the next phase of development.

17/05/2026

Class 5 is a pivotal year, often called the 'pinnacle of childhood,' where children stand at a balance point between the innocence of their younger years and their growing awareness of themselves and the world, consolidating their abilities while beginning to form their identities. Though they show confidence, they remain sensitive as they stand in a harmonious equilibrium between early childhood and adolescence, ready to engage with the world with newfound strength and capacities. Ultimately, Class 5 is often seen as a bright and transformative year.

In the Waldorf / Steiner curriculum, this newfound confidence in Class 5 children is met with epic adventures of ancient civilisations, from India, Iran / Persia, Mesopotamia, to Egypt, and Greece.

One of the Class 5 plays widely adopted in Australia is the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest surviving major work of literature from ancient Mesopotamia recorded in the Akkadian language. It tells the story of Gilgamesh, the semi-divine king. His tyrannical rule prompts the gods to create Enkidu, a wild man, to challenge him. Gilgamesh tames Enkidu, the two become inseparable friends and slay monsters Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven. As punishment, the gods kill Enkidu, shattering Gilgamesh's sense of invincibility and triggering a desperate quest for immortality. Though he fails to find eternal life, Gilgamesh gains wisdom, accepts human mortality, and returns to Uruk to take pride in his human accomplishment through recording history on stone tablets, transforming from an arrogant tyrant into a wise king.

In the Advanced Diploma intensives, student-teachers learned the story, its significance for Class 5 children as they often face similar themes in friendship and social life, and how they too can transform themselves in challenging times. The embodiment of the characters as they play different roles in the play offers opportunities for the growth and transformation of each student and the whole class; and in doing so, builds further confidence and identity individually and collectively. The student-teachers explored ways to select or cast children in the different roles, the different aspects of production, direction and performance of the play. It was a highly engaging learning experience!

06/05/2026

Classroom management is akin to solving riddles; it demands creative thinking, open-mindedness, curiosity, keen observation, critical thinking, intuition, and imagination. Just as riddles hide meaning in plain sight, classroom dynamics often conceal complex root causes beneath surface behaviours. It requires teachers to be fully conscious of their own being—mindfully navigating the "who, what, how, when, and where" of their actions to decode and manage these dynamics effectively.

The ultimate goal is to create a safe physical and psychological environment where learning can flourish. This encompasses organizing students, space, time, and content to enable full engagement. However, the challenge lies in the classroom's constant flux. Each student and every teacher is unique. Students grow daily, social relationships evolve, and family or societal influences permeate the room. As manager, educator, and caregiver, the teacher must understand that classroom management is the art and science of being in relationship in order to guide human beings to become who they wish to become. This complex social fabric demands a depth of understanding, relationship-building, and skill that goes far beyond simply keeping order.

Join us for this weekend intensive (workshop) on 16-17 May on our campus located at Warranwood, Victoria, when we will revisit key aspects of child development through the lens of Rudolf Steiner’s insights and explore the elements of teaching that nurture respectful collaboration, joyful learning, and the healthy unfolding of each child, both individually and within the group.

Visit our webpage by visiting our link-in-bio or go to https://teachsteiner.org/ClassroomManagement for more information.

04/05/2026

The face-to-face Intensive is the most popular component in the Advanced Diploma in Rudolf Steiner Education. Many of the student-teachers are studying online, and everyone is connected in one way or another. However, nothing is better than the feeling of coming together, learning, and growing as a
community.

In our last Intensive, we dove deep into the Class 4–6 curriculum through the art of wood carving. Working
with scrap wood and raw tree bark, our tutor guided us through every stage—from preparation to the final
polished product. We explored not just the techniques and health and safety protocols, but the pedagogical reasons behind teaching these skills at this age. For many student-teachers, this was their first time holding a carving knife. It takes courage to try something new and requires imagination to connect with a piece of raw bark and feel what it is trying to reveal. While some initially wondered, "How can I carve something presentable from this?" the warmth of our community and the tutor's encouragement motivated everyone to have a go.

Teachers are role models. When we step out of our comfort zones and embrace the courage to try something new, children learn from our example and develop trust in a teacher who guides them to succeed. They also learn that we may fail once or twice, but through practice we can all get better. By experiencing the challenges of the craft firsthand, the student-teachers developed a deeper empathy for what their students face in their learning. The empathy gained from facing these challenges fuels our
student-teachers' desire to find creative, meaningful ways to support every child.




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27/04/2026

One characteristic of Steiner/Waldorf education is the delivery of the curriculum through many artistic and creative means to develop, nourish, and support the 12 Senses of children. One can see many colourful and beautiful artworks and school grounds, or hear singing and recorder playing, when visiting any Steiner/Waldorf school. You can also see this in the teacher training images here.

When our senses are unhealthy or under-developed relative to their potential, we may experience difficulties, or ‘disorders’. These can manifest in specific gestures, postures, behaviours, and even lifestyle choices, in both adults and children.

This is a reminder that Term 2 starts this week. For those interested in the 12 Senses, there are two options: the Foundations of Steiner Education (Primary) course (Tuesday evenings) or the Early Childhood course (Wednesday evenings). Both courses explore this topic, but the latter focuses specifically on younger children and working in a kindergarten setting.

All sessions are recorded so you can catch up. You can visit the details of them by visiting our link-in-bio, or go to:

https://teachsteiner.org/foundationcourse
https://teachsteiner.org/EarlyChildhood