Even though we are only in the third week of Term 1, there has been a lot that has happened already. It started the week before Students returned with Staff Professional Learning Week and then when students returned, Year 1 marked the transition into Year 1, Year 12 started the final year of their schooling journey and the first week of School Photos has been completed and the first group of Pre-Service Teachers have visited from Uni of Canberra.
Staff Professional Learning Week
The week before students returned for 2025, our staff prepared by honing skills and learning themselves in a week of focussed professional learning which included introductions, inductions, refreshing of Child Safe strategies and procedures, and training. Our staff also enjoyed practical workshops led by Sandra Frain, an internationally trained Steiner educator specialising in Biodynamic Gardening. These workshops ranged from creating compost and fertiliser for use around our school to different planting techniques, Staff then broke off into groups to help prepare spaces for the students such as laying the foundations for a mural in the Breezeway, sprucing up the drama room, beautifying the Y 10 area, setting up the new Primary staff room and creating some teepee foundations in the Early Childhood areas.
The Year 1 Rose Ceremony
The week before students returned for 2025, our staff prepared by honing skills and learning themselves in a week of focussed professional learning which included introductions, inductions, refreshing of Child Safe strategies and procedures, and training. Our staff also enjoyed practical workshops led by Sandra Frain, an internationally trained Steiner educator specialising in Biodynamic Gardening. These workshops ranged from creating compost and fertiliser for use around our school to different planting techniques, Staff then broke off into groups to help prepare spaces for the students such as laying the foundations for a mural in the Breezeway, sprucing up the drama room, beautifying the Y 10 area, setting up the new Primary staff room and creating some teepee foundations in the Early Childhood areas.
The Last First Day for Year 12
Class 12 students have begun their final academic year at Orana with gusto. Year 12 English, this Semester, is delivered through Main Lessons, Perspectives, where students immerse themselves in the rich world of myths, fables, and fairy-tales – circling back with maturity and experience to encounter the stories with which they began their Steiner journey. Students are invited to explore how these timeless narratives construct and reflect the values of different cultures, eras, and worldviews. They also examine the ways in which storytelling shapes our understanding of human experience, morality, and identity. Approaching their studies from a phenomenological perspective, Class 12, as readers and story tellers, consider how the formation of characters and the structure of stories reveal deeper truths about the societies that create them.
Throughout the Main Lesson, students are invited to step into the natural world, walking the school grounds to observe and learn about the diverse plant varieties that thrive in our beautiful environment. This exploration encourages them to draw meaningful connections between their study of Orana’s rich flora and literary analysis—considering, for example, how the growth and transformation of plants can serve as powerful analogies for the themes of change, resilience, and interconnectedness found in storytelling.
Pictured here, Class 12 students were asked to work together to piece together different versions of The Three Little Pigs.
University of Canberra Pre-Service Teacher Visits
Orana Steiner School has been hosting a group of University of Canberra studying Early Childhood and Primary Education at our school. We were asked to showcase our rich pedagogy as part of their unit ‘Philosophies and Pedagogies in Early Childhood education’. It has been such a wonderful way to explore together what makes Steiner Schools unique and take a look at why we do things the way we do.
The pre-service teachers were blown away by our campus and it’s natural beauty. They appreciated the rooms so carefully laid out and inviting for the students. They commented on the attention to quality play spaces, both inside and out, and asked questions like ‘Why are the walls pink?’ It was a pleasure to introduce these upcoming teachers to different ways of educating children and we hope that by the amount and quality of the questions asked we have planted seeds of understanding that will blossom as the teachers develop in their careers. Who knows, we might see some back on the campus in the future!
