Brussels, 23 December 2024

Developing a layered and flexible curriculum framework

In 2024, co-funding from the European Union enabled us to finalise drafts for a common core Steiner Waldorf curriculum framework, a sustainability curriculum, and the HERMMES curriculum for media education.

Common core curriculum framework ready for review

Led by our ped­a­gog­i­cal advi­sor Dr Mar­tyn Raw­son, ECSWE’s Cur­ricu­lum work­ing group devel­oped a draft for a flex­i­ble macro-lev­el Stein­er Wal­dorf core cur­ricu­lum frame­work. Ground­ed in the Gen­er­a­tive Prin­ci­ples of Stein­er Wal­dorf Edu­ca­tion and over a cen­tu­ry of Stein­er Wal­dorf prac­tice around the world, the cur­ricu­lum out­lines devel­op­men­tal tasks and learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for school-aged learn­ers. Start­ing from 21 Feb­ru­ary 2025 onwards, our mem­bers will review the draft macro-lev­el ver­sion of the cur­ricu­lum, while the group will con­tin­ue expand­ing the curriculum’s meso-lev­el (‘mid­dle-lev­el’) through­out the year.

Sustainability curriculum in its final stage

Led by our pres­i­dent, Mar­gare­ta van Raem­don­ck, the Cur­ricu­lum work­ing group draft­ed a sus­tain­abil­i­ty cur­ricu­lum that gives gen­er­al ori­en­ta­tion for ear­ly child­hood and school edu­ca­tion with age-spe­cif­ic learn­ing aims and teach­ing strate­gies. The sus­tain­abil­i­ty cur­ricu­lum cov­ers themes such as eco­log­i­cal stew­ard­ship, bio­di­ver­si­ty, sus­tain­able farm­ing, renew­able ener­gy, and respon­si­ble resource use. It will be pre­sent­ed to mem­bers on 21 Feb­ru­ary 2025 for fur­ther review as part of the above men­tioned com­mon core cur­ricu­lum framework.

HERMMES curriculum set to launch

The HERMMES cur­ricu­lum for media edu­ca­tion will be launched on 20 Feb­ru­ary 2025 at the “Books or Tablets?” con­fer­ence in Brus­sels and will be avail­able on the HERMMES web­site from then on. Aim­ing at learn­ers from 0–18 years of age, the cur­ricu­lum cov­ers five key areas: well-being and safe­ty, com­pu­ta­tion­al think­ing and prob­lem solv­ing, media con­tent cre­ation, crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion and data lit­er­a­cy, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, coop­er­a­tion, and empa­thy. The learn­ing aims and teach­ing strate­gies of the HERMMES cur­ricu­lum are aligned with the com­mon core cur­ricu­lum frame­work and the Dig­i­tal Com­pe­tence Frame­work for Cit­i­zens of the Euro­pean Commission.

Further reading