Children's Center for the Art of Parenting, Waldorf School St. Petersburg

• Location: St. Petersburg, Russia
• Founded: 1994
• Age of students: 7-17 years.
• Type of eduaction: blended
• Language of instruction: Russian.

The Waldorf comprehensive school was opened in 1994 under the guidance of a qualified Waldorf educator Marion Fischbach from Switzerland. Long-term scientific, pedagogical work, joint activities with other curators allowed teachers to organize high-level education for students from grades 1 to 11. The school offers an in-depth study of English and German from the first grade, all children learn to play the flute, sing, draw, draw, try themselves in art crafts, theater productions. High school students can participate in international projects and school exchanges with students from Waldorf schools in Europe.

The first enrollment of 1994 consisted of 15 first-graders, at the same time groups of kindergarten, students of a seminar on preschool pedagogy were recruited - they all formed the Center for the Art of Education. Today, the institution offers education at all levels, graduates receive a state certificate of general basic or secondary education. Since September 2007, the Center for the Art of Parenting moved to a building on Vasilievsky Island.

Social projects with people from the “risk group” organized by the school:

• 2006 - staging of the play based on the play by M. Gorky “At the Bottom” with the participation of homeless people
• 2007-2008 - a play based on the Christmas play by C. Dickens together with street children, pupils of the shelter
• 2010-2011 - staging a musical circus performance in a nursing home.

The school annually conducts education practices for students. Among them:

• Agricultural
• Geodesic
• Social
• Forestry.

Tasks of practical sessions:

• Participation in the life of a real economy, without the usual urban comfort
• Practical use of the simplest methods of mathematical statistics
• An opportunity to see the formation of fertile soils (composting)
• Acquaintance with one of the alternative methods of farming (biodynamics)
• The need to interact with each other, adults in a non-standard environment, make their own decisions, take care of themselves and others.

In summer, students travel to the camp (der Gorneshno). Camp program:

• Interesting activities, walks
• Healthy eating
• Real Russian bath
• Experience living in a large community
• Swimming, kayaking
• Acquaintance with medicinal, edible plants, harvesting them for future use
• Help in the forest, thinning out overgrowth
• Making crafts from wood
• Needlework.

Theatrical performances are a mandatory part of the school curriculum: small productions of “for parents” in the first grade gradually grow into serious work on a large performance in the eighth. The choice of plays, sets, costumes, music - all students do, pre-study the history of the theater, the development of drama.

In high school, all previous experience translates into a serious theater project, the audience of which becomes a wide audience. Implemented projects - “Four Juan”, “Daughter of the Swamp King”. Performances were shown in Ukraine, in Denmark, some theatrical productions received diplomas of the International Theater Bryantsev Festival.

• The basis of the school’s teaching is Waldorf pedagogy, which is an alloy of a number of components: the academic, aesthetic, practical labor aspects of education, the methods of science education, teaching painting, foreign languages, music, and the art of speech. The distinctive features of the educational process are the methodology for constructing the schedule for the entire academic year as a whole, and the special structure of the lesson.
• The social organization of the school includes teacher-parent self-government, a new understanding of the work of the teacher, the education of Waldorf teachers. The features of Waldorf pedagogy form a harmonious unity determined by anthroposophical foundations.
• Parents are an important component of the work of the Waldorf school, they take part in round tables, lectures, and initiate thematic discussions themselves.
• The educational institution maintains links with many Waldorf schools, including the Rudolf-Steiner Schule Wandsbek in Hamburg. Schools 6 times exchanged groups of students.
• The school supports social projects that develop responsibility in children, attention to pressing issues, compassion, willingness to help those who are in difficult situations.

Center work schedule:

• Monday-Friday from 8:30 to 18:00, Saturday from 8:30 to 15:00.
• Eduactional sessions begin at 9:00.

On Sunday and holidays established by the legislation of the Russian Federation, the institution does not work.

Admission to school is carried out from 6.5 years old at the request of parents.

Open door days are held several times a year, during the autumn and spring fairs: this is an opportunity to attend open classes of secondary and high schools, to see the rhythmic parts of elementary school classes, to talk with school teachers and kindergarten teachers. High school students make presentations, hold a reader conference.

The educational institution offers benefits for paying for tuition as a measure of social support for students and parents.

• Guardianship services during the studies
• Student supervision