I was born and educated in Cape Town, growing up first in Camps Bay and then Rondebosch. I always felt drawn to work with young children and so began my post matric training at Barkly House Training College for preschool teachers. It was during my training that I had my first encounter with the Waldorf early childhood approach, visiting the Constantia Waldorf Kindergarten for an open day. I felt that this was inherently the right environment for young children. I became disillusioned with main stream education and left the training college. It was a while before I began working as an early childhood practitioner. I went on to complete a BA in Social Science, following my interests in Psychology, English literature and Social Anthropology. During that time I married and had had two sons. I completed my preprimary teacher training gaining a Post Grad Dip in Pre Primary Education with UNISA.
Both my sons attended Waldorf Kindergartens and during this time I observed, absorbed and read an enormous amount about early childhood development and this wonderfully rich and nurturing approach to early childhood education. The time was right for me to begin my work as an early childhood practitioner. I wanted to start a home-based group in order to be available to my own children. We found a house in Mowbray which could afford this and so Rainbow Nursery School was born in May of 1993. I have continued to study, completing modules in Counselling at South African College of Applied Psychology (SACAP) and also completed the year in Waldorf Foundations studies at the Centre for Creative Education. I have also completed two modules of Emergency Pedagogy which trains teachers to use the Waldorf curriculum as a tool to overcome trauma. I always look forward to attending the Waldorf Teachers Regional Sharing Conference each term and the National teachers conference which enriches my understanding and inspires my work with children.
A great interest I have is building community. Rainbow Nursery School is a way to do this for children and their parents. Another area I have worked to do this has to help form a friends group for the local green space called the Rosebank Village Green which is along the banks of the Liesbeek River. With other like-minded people we built compost heaps, created indigenous water-wise flower bed and even grew vegetables. This interest inspires the content of the curriculum that I offer the children in the group.
I also very much enjoy teaching children handcrafts inspired by the Waldorf handwork curriculum for kindergarten and primary school. This involves learning skills of stitching, beading and appliqué sewing with felt, doll and toy making, knitting and crochet. For many years I ran holiday craft workshops. I now continue with an extra mural handcraft classes one afternoon a week during the school term.