Our Mission
Our mission is to teach students to be creative and critical thinkers with a strong moral compass. With a developmentally appropriate, experiential and artistic approach to education, we enable the unfolding of each child’s unique capacities to meet the world with confidence and a sense of purpose.
Core Values
We believe in educating the whole child.
We believe in an education that leads to intellectual, emotional and spiritual development. We honor childhood based on a developmentally appropriate curriculum. We believe in educating students creatively out of an understanding of child development and knowledge of how children learn.
We believe that it takes a community to educate a child.
We believe that a school community, inclusive of students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni is essential for a healthy school. They are in many ways co-creators of our education. We value a diverse school community in which social interactions are guided by kindness and respect.
We believe in a governance based on professional autonomy and shared collective responsibility.
We believe in a collaborative approach to school governance that is based on transparency and open communication.
We have respect and reverence for the natural world and embrace our responsibility as stewards.
We value the natural world, the land that we have been blessed to be stewards of, and the many opportunities the land provides for our students to develop appreciation and gratitude.
We believe we have a social and moral responsibility to strive to make this world a better place.
Alumni Testimonial
“Kimberton imbued a sense of wonder in me for the world and set a strong foundation for learning, creative and critical thinking, and doing. Over the past few years, I have lived in Toulouse, Amsterdam, rural Kenya, and Rome and am now traveling regularly to Southeast Asia for work. My assignment at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN is very interdisciplinary in nature, linking agriculture with nutrition. This type of work requires strong integrative thinking, feeling, and questioning that is integral to Waldorf education. While Development has often been carried out by technical experts, anyone who thoroughly looks at a community, let alone a nation, can realize that a holistic approach is imperative to instigate any change as each region is an utterly complex product of history, its environment, social ties, and individuals.
I am most grateful for the wonderful education I received at KWS.”
— Anna-Lisa Noack, KWS’07
BA International Studies and French/Francophone Studies ‘11 Dickinson College, PA
Research Masters International Development Studies ‘13 University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Since October, 2013, consultant at UN FAO working to incorporate nutrition into agricultural investments in Asia and develop nutrition curricula from an agricultural perspective.
The Kimberton Waldorf Graduate
Creative expression is central to the developing mind. At Kimberton Waldorf School, we view opportunities to engage in artistic activities as essential to nurturing creative thinking. Art, music, handwork, sculpting, woodwork, movement arts, and blacksmithing are intrinsically interwoven with chemistry, physics, mathematics, botany, literature, and history. We know that the development of clear precise thinking is learned through form drawing, dynamic drawing and geometry. Students learn to understand themselves more fully as morally ethical individuals through the study of history. Scientific observation is enhanced through the development of wonder, accurate seeing, rigorous cognitive application and formal causal thinking.
Upon graduation from Kimberton Waldorf School, each student will have:
Identified personal strengths and weaknesses; and cultivated and implemented strategies for working with these attributes as vehicles for lifelong learning.
Demonstrated fluency in the methods of science, mathematics, history, language, literature, and the social sciences; and demonstrated awareness and understanding of the contemporary issues and historic changes related to these disciplines.
Developed skills in several artistic disciplines and, through in-depth work, gained proficiency in the fundamental aspects of the visual, performing, and practical arts.
Developed the ability to communicate in a foreign language and an understanding of other cultures.
Demonstrated the ability to express in writing and speech his or her independent and creative thoughts and judgments.
Developed a healthy, loving relationship to nature as well as an understanding of ecology and the processes of nature through actively farming and gardening, observing, and living in the natural world.
Developed fundamental capacities and confidence in movement by experiencing a variety of movement activities.
Grappled with core issues of the human experience, including the nature of life, death, friendship, spirituality, and vocation.
Developed compassion, empathy, responsibility, and gratitude towards others through a sense of global citizenship, an awareness of contemporary societal issues, and social responsibility.
Acquired life skills in the areas of child development, health, interpersonal communication and conflict resolution, collaboration and decision-making, time management, and the art of leisure.
