Secondary - Years 7 - 10
Year 7
In Year 7, students reach 13 years of age, and become teenagers. This period of inner development resonates with key themes of the chapter in world history of the great voyages of discovery and the renewal of culture that took place during the Renaissance. Teachers support students to discover new perspectives that direct their attention towards the exploration of the outer world and away from the newly experienced unrest in their inner life. Students are given many opportunities for active learning and group interaction.
Year 8
The Year 8 program is designed to meet the needs of approaching adolescence in a time that is itself challenging. When new inner forces are emerging in the growing young person, a healthy series of appropriate challenges provide a stimulus to balanced development. In this period of change, initiation marks the movement from one stage of life to another, from one state of consciousness to a higher one. Thus, we offer a broad program of academic, aesthetic, social and physical courses that will stimulate and inspire students as they leave childhood and prepare to enter the new world that lies ahead.
Year 9
Unique to Mansfield Steiner School, the Year 9 Outdoor Education Program is an intentional, sequenced outdoor education learning journey. Designed to give the students a yearlong adventure, the program works to round out their skills for independent travel, preparing them for their Year 10 cultural exchange.
Built to work with the natural environments that surround Mansfield, the students will spend 55 nights out in various Australian landscapes, hiking, paddling, riding bikes and completing Main Lessons relevant to the associated environments and places, whilst immersing their growing beings and awareness in the area’s unique landscapes, culture, tradition, and history.
These outdoor experiences will provide opportunities to gain perspective of themselves and their place in the world. The program is shaped to give students a chance to build first aid skills, participate in a volunteer organisation and take on real responsibilities. They will learn water safety and radio communication skills, which are helpful skills to continue to navigate the outdoor program.
On each trip, the area they visit is chosen, above all, as a beautiful natural place. This is part of a continuing theme of appreciation for and empathy with nature. An important part of achieving this aim is the intentionally uncomplicated nature of each trip: the less gear you carry and the less impact you make.
As students mature and grow, the program meets the students at the different transitional points of their development, helping to prepare them for the responsibilities of adulthood.
Year 10
In Year 10 students continue to learn through the Main Lessons, now in a broad and rich curriculum of wide ranging topics. Searching questions, which are a prerequisite for philosophical thought, now begin to be asked. The students’ level of judgement becomes more analytical and a deeper level of responsibility can be expected. Suitable themes for this age are those that provoke thoughts that question the human condition. The imperative at this point is to grapple with the issues and questions raised with an inner confidence that answers can be found. This confidence comes through a synthesis of deepening knowledge and inner experience, combined with a sense of wonder that has been cultivated since Year 1. The students realise that issues and ideas need to be explored from many sides and from many levels of experience, before any judgements can be made. The Year 10 students focus on community service; the students will go out into the community and share the many skills and talents they have acquired during their years at the school.