Four-year-old children are busy chopping carrots and potatoes and one says enthusiastically: “We’re making Friday soup!”
Their teacher Lenka Baronkova is next to them, guiding them and singing softly, “let’s all chop together to make the soup”.
At the Waldorf playgroup in Imselliet, the children do not take a packed lunch – they eat what they cook.
This is a start, bit by bit Maltese people will become open to alternative education
As the premises are on an organic farm, this makes them even more aware of their food sources and the plant growing process.
The playgroup has been set up by Deirdre Morris and her partner Julian Saez, who relocated to Malta from Spain.
“We used to send our twins to a Waldorf school in Spain and were very keen on them having the same education here,” said Ms Morris, who is Irish.
The fact there was no Waldorf school in Malta did not put them off – they made it their project.
They recruited a professional Waldorf-trained teacher and set up a playgroup.They are now in the process of applying for a permit for a kindergarten based on principles of Waldorf pedagogy and positive psychology.
“Eventually we’d like to take it further – abroad Waldorf education goes up to 18 years,” she said.
In Waldorf pedagogy – found in most countries in the Western world – play is core to the learning experience and the healthy, positive development of the child.
“On the surface it looks like play but the work will be taking place underneath.”
Letters, reading and writing do not feature at all in kindergarten. Nor do copybooks, pencils or books make an appearance until after the age of six.
Storytelling and fantasy are core to the practice of ‘teaching’ and facilitating a child’s development.
Toys are made from natural materials and include rounds of wood cut from birch logs, seashells and lengths of coloured silks for dressing-up or building.
The children run happily through the farm gate when they are dropped off by their parents. They are greeted by Whiskey – the dog. A little girl goes straight to the swing, hanging from a tree branch and starts singing a Christmas carol. Next to her a little boy is climbing a tree, while a girl sings to herself in the hammock. Star the horse looks on patiently.
The premises are rented from two organic farmers who willingly allow access to their tumoli of land and their animals.
On a typical day, lessons may include olive picking, grape picking and then making grape juice, planting vegetable seeds, baking bread, orange picking and tending to the chicken eggs in the incubator.
Teaching is non-verbal. They have soup every Friday, so the children know that soup day is always followed by two days of not going to school.
“We want to teach children how to connect through joy rather than through complaining,” said Ms Morris, who for many years worked as an educational psychologist.
In Holland, Waldorf schools are funded by the Government, and worldwide the rate of Waldorf-educated children who move on to tertiary education is more than 80 per cent.
“Children are not simply let loose to do as they please, there is a structure and, the way it works, the system elicits good behaviour,” she said.
She is aware that this conceptual education does not appeal to everyone: it is a niche market and for now it is mostly Waldorf-aware foreigners who send their children to their playschool.
“But this is a start, bit by bit Maltese people will become open to alternative education.”
As school time comes to an end, the teacher starts singing a song: “It is time to tidy up”.
Without further prompting, or raised voices, the children start putting everything away then head to the garden for a spot of gentle swinging before their parents pick them up.
The Waldorf playgroup in front of San Andrea School, limits of Żebbiegħ, is holding an open day on April 27 from 10am to 2pm. For more details, visit the School of Positivity Malta page on Facebook.