It all started as a tale of two sets of sisters.

Local Whangārei sisters Tessa and Amy had set their sights on starting a Steiner school: They were focussed and motivated and made significant progress, including being gifted the Whangārei Steiner Community Trust from a previous group. While Tessa was learning the ins and outs of setting up an email, because establishing contact opportunity is step one, Amy was getting the financial plan in order. Step two, contact an IT professional, because tech can be tricky. Step three, and in true New Zealand fashion, learn that your friendly tech guide happens to be connected to a community of retired Steiner teachers, who low and behold had adult children who were passionate about Steiner.

Enter Rhylie and Raechel, sisters, who had long term connections with the Steiner community and philosophy, and dreams of creating opportunities for the education they knew and loved. They noticed a poster, care of Tessa, advertising a community meeting about a local Whangārei Steiner School initiative and decided to go along. After this a meeting was set, daydreams and visions were aligned, and the founding group was formed.

The pandemic saw the rearranging of goals and timelines, and decision was made to put starting a school on hold and to focus on building a community foundation — March 2022 saw Whangārei Steiner establish our Playgroup and soon after came our Homeschool Groups.

As the community grows, the future of Whangārei Steiner looks bright, with plans to further expand our groups, festivals and workshop events being added to the calendar, welcoming new additions to the team, and plans being made for our next steps.

Please be in touch with us if you have a wish to be part of this story, supporting the journey of developing Steiner in Whangārei. It’s been an exciting, sometimes unpredictable, and rewarding ride so far, and we look forward to the next chapter.

Observe the children, follow your intuition. Work so that all of your actions are worthy of imitation. - Rudolf Steiner