Alumni for former pupils of Woodlands School, Fairwarp
The Full Story
Woodlands School, Fairwarp
Woodland’s School, a Rudolf Steiner School, was opened in 1948, by the Headmaster, Arno Rohda and was supported by a college of teachers.
Situated in a most tranquil part of the Ashdown forest, many who knew it will remember it well.
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Woodlands, as did all other Rudolf Steiner schools, ran on the three seven-year stages in childhood and that different educational arrangements were needed at each stage.
The first period is from birth to the stage of second dentition, or about seven years of age; the second is from about seven to fourteen years, the age of puberty; the third period is from the age of puberty to the age of twenty-one.
For children between the ages of about four to six and a half there is the nursery class. The school proper begins at the next stage and during the period between the ages of about seven to fourteen the organisation is based on a class teacher system, the class teacher being responsible for the main lesson and ideally accompanying the class through the school stage.
From the age of puberty to the age of 18 the school is organised on a specialist teacher basis.
A recent publication by Barbara Abbs captures the visual memories of the land surrounding the school.
"In a narrow lane just north of Maresfield a large Robinar, a yew and clumps of raspberry canes are unusual occupants of a stretch of country hedgerow.
On the other side of the lane, a large-leaved bamboo grows through the hedge of a cottage garden. Further on, in a muddy field adjoining a farmyard, there is a close-set row of lime trees standing three or four feet inside the boundary hedge.
A fine compact golden oak, Quercus robur ‘Concordia’, can be found standing in a meadow, again just inside the field boundary.
One field division is marked by huge multi-stemmed sycamores with hundred-year old pollards growing from six hundred year old boles.
The fields slope down to a wooded valley and at the edge of the woodland is a group of large old larches and a fallen, but still living, Quercus coccinea’
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B. Abbs,Maresfield Entrepreneur: William Wood and Woodlands Nursery (1994)
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This will no doubt all come flooding back to all who read this. If you wish to have more information on this and other things, then please contact me. The School closed in 1968 but the buildings and land have changed little in this time. More recently the building has been undergoing restoration both internal and external but in essence it remains as it did 33 years ago.