English

Just facts
Our school is situated in the centre of Moscow. It’s a 5-storeyed building with a pretty school yard and an open tennis court. There are 400 students in classes 1 to 11. The school is state-maintained.
Our first graduates finished school in the year 2000. All our graduates study or have already finished studies in the best Moscow universities. Two of them have returned to school as teachers.
A little bit of history
The school sprang from a Waldorf kindergarten based on the children’s club “Aristotle”. Before that future teachers and parents used to meet in private homes for lectures and seminars. One day they had a visitor from Keel Mr. Altmann, leader of the Waldorf Seminar. The listeners were fascinated by the Waldorf ideas and later Mr. Kranich and Libendorf helped to organize a Waldorf Seminar for 25 students, among them was the future Headmaster of our school Anatoly Pinsky. After 2 years of study the seminarists founded Waldorf  schools all over Russia.
For our school we were offered a run-down pre-war building and only owing to the great financial and practical help from the IAO and its German brunch led by Mr. Atehage and support from Mr. Goebel and Mr. B. Ruf the building was restored. The future pupils’ parents did their best painting the walls, assembling furniture, getting classrooms ready for the school year. On September 1, 1992 the school was opened. In the beginning it was an independent free Waldorf School but later we had to become a state-maintained school. Bills and rent sky-rocketed and the parents could not afford it. Yet we didn’t want the school to become one for the wealthy elite. Due to the efforts of our headmaster Anatoly Pinsky the school managed to preserve its Waldorf uniqueness.
Our specials
We are open and ready to communicate. We take part in educational forums and contests: in 2007 we became winners of the national project “Education”. Today we take part in developing qualitative methods of academic assessment. Our students keep showing good results compared to ordinary schools. We also won the recent contest “Building the School of the Future” aimed at developing Moscow secondary education.
We are Waldorf
All Waldorf schools have much in common, yet each is unique. We also have our priorities:
1)    Practical teaching.
In a megapolis like Moscow kids don’t have many chances to do handwork. Our primary school pupils do a lot of knitting, needlework, they grow wheat, make bread, build houses, do wood and metal work. Workshops are effort and money consuming. And yet we stick to it.
2)    Music.
Apart from “regular” music teachers we have a number of part-time teachers who give lessons after classes. Half of our students take these lessons. We have class and school orchestras, choirs and stage huge music projects.
3)    Theatre.
Each class traditionally shows a yearly play in Russian, English or German.
4)    Individual approach.
From class 8 on students join project groups—4 hours a week with a presentation every term. Senior students have a chance to deepen their knowledge in two or three subjects during 6 or 9 additional lessons a week.
5)    Field practice.
Our middle school goes traveling, upper school has agricultural, language, geological and social practice.

Problems

Now the Waldorf movement in Russia is entering a new stage. Due to financial and judicial problems there are fewer schools. Yet, interest in Waldorf ideas is still there.
Under the circumstances it’s important for our school to fortify its internal and external position:
1)    The problem of teachers’ education has never been so acute. For many years there used to be a Teachers’ Training Seminar. Its graduates now hold key positions in our school and in other Waldorf schools. On the other hand there are quite a few teachers without any systematic Waldorf training. We are trying to find ways and means for their education. It’s not an easy task. It’s not only the matter of instruction but the question of developing new artistic, intellectual and spiritual abilities.
2)    Since we are a “small” school “megapolis-wise” we cannot pay our teachers adequately.
3)    It’s also important to cooperate with the social environment. Parents who wish to bring up their children in freedom and creativity, who are against plunging them into virtual reality, need to be shown the strong points of the Waldorf School. So we try to systematize and present our experience to those interested. Every last Friday of the month there is a guided tour of the school. We also have a site on the Internet and publish articles in periodicals.
4)    Last but not least. In the beginning many things had to be started from scratch based on personal relations, primary by our collegue Utha Konovalenko. Now we can’t do without stable long-term partnership with other Waldorf schools abroad. We are ready to offer school exchange programs, joined projects, artistic, social and language practice. We can also offer help to Waldorf teachers of Russian.

Retrospective and perspective


20 years have passed. Now it’s time to look back and see what has changed and the right moment to cast a glance into the future.
The school is growing. The number of students have doubled yet the school building is the same. It’s beautiful and spaceous with its unique atmosphere but we plan to enroll 50 something kids each year. To develop upper school we need another building where we could create a specialized modern world for the senior grades retaining the specific Waldorf environment for the primary school.
Last winter the school incorporated the Waldorf kinder-garden (500 meters away from the main building). So we have now a pre-school with 100 kids. We are trying to bridge the gap between kinder-garden and school.

Two Mikhails—our pride!

The school can boast of two “Teachers of the year of Russia”. Our Music teacher Mikhail Starodubtsev (2008) and our Maths teacher and Headmaster Mikhail Slutch (2010). To hand in the main prize—the Cristal Pelican—Chairman of the RF Government Vladimir Putin came to our school in person.

Live School

The Teacher’s Training Seminar has begun its work based on the Waldorf principles. It’s designated for students and teachers of Waldorf schools.

20th Birthday

This autumn the school is celebrating its 20th anniversary . We hope this event will become a real festival of Waldorf education. We’ll tell you about it and invite you to take part in it. Let’s make it an unforgettable event. Join in!