This article is from page 34 of the 2007-12-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 34 JPG
THE Raheen Wood Steiner School held it’s twentieth advent fair at the weekend and local people turned out in force to support it and to pick up some unusual Christmas gifts.
Stalls laden down with handcrafts and hand-made decorations as well as lots of food stalls offering good- ies of every kind did a brisk trade for the day.
It was a real family day out and the youngsters enjoyed puppet shows and story telling.
“It’s a real celebration,” said Prin- cipal, Pierce O’Sheil, who tried his hand at storytelling.
‘“We’ve been getting great support locally for the fair down the years and it’s an important fundraiser for us. It usually brings in between €4.000 and €5,000.”
While no school can ever have enough cash in the bag for all the projects it might want to invest in, fund raising is the lifeblood of the Raheen Wood School, as it still does not have recognition and consequent funding from the department.
“We had a meeting with them two weeks ago and we’re optomistic,”’ said Pierce.
Raheen Wood the founding Stein- er Waldorf School in the Republic of Ireland and has been offering a multi-denominational, child-centred co-education since 1986. The school is situated in mature woodlands near the village of Tuamgraney.
The school caters for for children from kindergarten age (4-6) through the primary classes (7-12), with the option of the ALFA project in nearby Scariff for ongoing secondary level
Steiner education.
The school offers “an academic and practical education for the whole child’, and is part of a rapidly grow- ing international school movement of over 800 schools worldwide. Based on the work of scientist and philoso- pher Rudolf Steiner, the education began in 1919 with the founding of the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, Germany.