Moscow, 5th — 7th October 2018

Key takeaways from the Council meeting in Moscow
The ECSWE representatives worked on three topics, the centenary of Waldorf education, school leadership and quality care.

The Coun­cil meet­ing in Moscow ded­i­cat­ed con­sid­er­able time to the upcom­ing cen­te­nary of Wal­dorf edu­ca­tion in 2019. A pub­lic con­fer­ence was held at the Moscow Ped­a­gog­i­cal Uni­ver­si­ty and fea­tured lec­tures on the role of Wal­dorf ped­a­gogy in edu­ca­tion, its artis­tic approach to teach­ing, the role of for­eign lan­guage teach­ing, impuls­es and visions for the future of Euro­pean schools, the cross-cur­ric­u­lar core of Wal­dorf edu­ca­tion, the impor­tance of phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion and the healthy coop­er­a­tion of chil­dren, teach­ers and par­ents. The inter­nal work on the mat­ter includ­ed an update on the planned con­fer­ence in Brus­sels and an exchange on nation­al lev­el activ­i­ties that were pre­sent­ed in one-minute “pitch­es” before enter­ing the discussion.

The Russ­ian Asso­ci­a­tion facil­i­tat­ed a work­ing ses­sion on school lead­er­ship and orga­ni­za­tion­al man­age­ment. Four groups dis­cussed how schools can be run effec­tive­ly and col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly, how the Wal­dorf trade­mark can be pro­tect­ed, how new Wal­dorf ini­tia­tives can be sup­port­ed and how a nation­al asso­ci­a­tion work­ing with vol­un­teers can man­age the tran­si­tion towards a pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion. ECSWE rep­re­sen­ta­tives were invit­ed to sup­port their Russ­ian col­leagues with their nation­al expertise.

To bet­ter sup­port our advo­ca­cy in the ET 2020 Work­ing Group Schools, an explo­rative sur­vey and an exchange on qual­i­ty care sys­tems in Europe were orga­nized. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives were asked to describe and dis­cuss how school eval­u­a­tion is orga­nized at nation­al lev­el, what role the nation­al and the Wal­dorf cur­ricu­lum plays in qual­i­ty care, how nation­al tests and school leav­ing cer­tifi­cates come into play, if and how oth­er stake­hold­ers like e.g. par­ents are involved and what role of the pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment and appraisal of teach­ers play in qual­i­ty care.

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Georg Jürgens