Kindlehill Celebrates 10 Years

Feature Image: The first Kindlehillians on August 3rd, 2000

Ten years ago today – on August 3^rd, 2000 – seventeen children, their parents and three teachers from the Rudolf Steiner tradition put down roots at 8 Lake Street, Wentworth Falls. Originally built in the 1950s as a schoolhouse for Blue Mountains Grammar, the site had been through many incarnations including a spell as an art centre and meditation retreat. Now it was to be Kindlehill, a primary school that placed community at its heart.

Susan Herold, the only founding parent who still has a child still at the school (Mira in Year 6), likens those early heady days to “a rocket launch”, “a huge blast of energy” and “the beginning of an adventure”. Pioneer optimism and blue sky idealism ran high amongst the parent group, even as the daunting realities of starting a new school began to kick in. On August 3^rd 2000, the building was an empty shell without so much as a table or chair and money was in short supply.

Lynn, who has been a teacher since the school’s inception, recalls the fundamental excitement of dipping into the wellspring of Steiner’s educational philosophy, and relating these ideas to contemporary Australian society. “In the beginning we didn’t even identify ourselves as a Steiner school”, she said. “We spoke somewhat cumbersomely of ourselves as a school for creative/artistic education.”

Thanks to a loan from one mother, to teachers prepared to work for nothing, to parents who built and maintained the facilities, to John Daniel who brought his business and administrative skills to the table, the fledgling school survived. Without this level of commitment, Susan is sure that “we wouldn’t have made it.” Inside the classroom, the children felt only the love and warmth, however Susan remembers the uncertainty, the adults never quite sure what the next challenge would be. “It was a damn exciting time but exhausting.”

Ten years on, Susan feels that the less predictable, airy days of the school’s evolution has passed. These days, Kindlehill is more grounded and stable, especially with the purchase of the premise late last year. Lynn likens the founding of the school to “conceiving a child, providing the conditions that would nourish it, and living in relationship to what unfolded as its unique character or personality.  We kindled a light on the hill.”