Learning Support Conference 2017

DEEPENING OUR UNDERSTANDING

OF THE TWELVE SENSES

Hosted by Samford Valley Steiner School, this conference is designed to be

relevant for all those working with children in the Waldorf School: teachers,
assistants, learning support staff and allied health workers.

The aim of the conference is to help participants to develop and deepen their understanding of
Waldorf pedagogy and the Anthroposophical pictures of child development in relation to supporting
children with extra needs. Rudolf Steiner said, Our rightful place as educators is to be removers of
hindrances each child in every age brings something new into the world from Divine regions and it
is our task, as educators, to remove bodily and physical obstacles out of the way; to remove
hindrances so that this Spirit may enter, in full freedom, into life. The pictures we build of a child
directly influence the way we interact with, receive and are received by them. During the
conference, we will explore how we can build living pictures of each individual child that will guide us
to an understanding of how to work with them in a way that supports them to access the curriculum,
but leaves them free to work with their own unique destiny picture.
This is the second of a series of LS conferences; each can be attended singly or as a complete series.
Each one will focus on our work with children through a different lens. This particular conference is
looking through the lens of The 12 Senses.

Friday 10th - Sunday 12th March 2017

Samford Valley Steiner School
 THE PROGRAMME
Time Friday 10 March Saturday 11 March Sunday 12 March

8.00 Singing with Karen

Keynote Lecture Keynote Lecture
How can we prepare our children to meet todays Enlivening the etheric
8:30 world? body
Lakshmi Prasanna Lakshmi Prasanna
8.30am 9.45am
Morning tea
10.00 Morning tea
9.45 10.15am
10.30 Workshop 1: Deepening the senses through a case
study
School contributions
Barbara Baldwin
Workshop 2: An exploration of the connection
10.15 11am
between balance and hearing
Janet Bitschine
Workshop 3: Are there really twelve?
John Davidson
Workshop 4: Bringing Life and Learning through Our
Senses- with Clay Making Panel Discussion &
Kate Sharp Reflections
12.00
Lunch
11am 12.30pm
1.30 Workshop 5: The sense of touch, the ego and the
autistic spectrum
Jackie Cox-Taylor
Workshop 6: Hearing and balance; what is their
relationship?
Karen Foster
Workshop 7: The Soul qualities of the 12 Senses
Ellen Sallows
Workshop 8: The burning bush: the senses of speech
and hearing
Alan Drysdale
Registration from
3.00 3pm Afternoon tea

3.30 School Tour 4.30pm Workshops 5 8 Continued

5.00 Dinner Dinner

Keynote Lecture
The senses and
6.30
technology - can we
to Keynote Lecture
find a counterforce to
8.00 The senses and technology (continued)
the deadening
influence of
Barbara Baldwin
technology?
Barbara Baldwin
 INTRODUCING THE PRESENTERS AND THE WORKSHOPS

Keynote Lecturers
Lakshmi Prasanna
Lakshmi is Founder and president of the Anthroposophical Medical Society in India and is a
paediatrician who runs a healing and curative centre for special needs children in Hyderabad,
South India. She also works extensively in Australia as a lecturer, health educator and teacher
trainer. Lakshmi is able to offer teachers insights into questions surrounding the deeper
meaning of illness and well-being.

Barbara Baldwin
Barbara has been working with children who have additional learning needs and
communication difficulties in many settings. As a curative educator and speech
pathologist, she has sought to build bridges between home and school, between
parents and teachers and between children and their given situations. Over the past
few years, she has lectured extensively on various aspects of sensory disturbances as
the foundation of social and learning difficulties. The theme of point and periphery has
been central to this topic and has led to some of the insights she will share during this
conference.

Morning Workshops
Workshop 1: Deepening the senses through a case study with Barbara Baldwin
Barbara has been working with children who have additional learning needs and communication difficulties in many
settings. As a curative educator and speech pathologist, she has sought to build bridges between home and school, between
parents and teachers and between children and their given situations. Over the past few years, she has lectured extensively
on various aspects of sensory disturbances as the foundation of social and learning difficulties. The theme of point and
periphery has been central to this topic and has led to some of the insights she will share during this conference.

Workshop 2: An exploration of the connection between balance and hearing

with Janet Bitschine
The ear is a complex and mysterious organ that helps us keep our balance in the six planes of
space as well as receiving sound from the outside world. We will explore our own balance
followed by listening inside and outside. Finally, we will look at how we are affected by all of this
and what observations and insights we can learn about ourselves.

Janet began in England in high schools where the well-being of students was an important aspect
of her work. She discovered Steiner Education following her arrival in Australia in 1980 after the
births of her three children. Janet studied developmental movement in 1996 to support children
who are less comfortable with their own bodies and their ability to learn. This led her to study and explore Curative
Education, which now informs her work with children
 Workshop 3: Are there really twelve? with John Davidson
An exploration of sense experience to see how if everybody else thinks there are five senses,
how on earth did Rudolf Steiner get to twelve?

John discovered Steiner education when looking for a suitable school for his children. It was at
a time when he was just completing his teaching diploma and after three years teaching in
state primary schools in NZ, John took his first class from one to eight in Christchurch. John
moved to Melbourne in 1990, and has taught classes 1-12 and teacher training courses all
over Australia and in Japan.

Workshop 4: Bringing life and learning through our senses through clay
making with Kate Sharp
In this session, we will work with an idea, an inspiration or a question from the morning or
evening's lecture, something that lit up your own interest. Then following a simple part guided
process using clay making, reflection and some sharing, we will 'slow it down', expand it, play
with it. This is a practical session that will also involve post mapping, in the context of 'making
active' the sense organs/ in relation to the arts and learning.

Kate Sharp is a Brisbane based arts therapist, educator and artist. After a long career in
teaching handwork and craft, she is grateful for the long-awaited opportunity to extend and
deepen her own research into anthroposophy and practise of the arts; to further develop her
own arts therapy practice and to experience life with more simplicity. She holds a Grad Dip (Art Therapy and Counselling),
MA in Creative Arts Therapy (MIECAT); a member of ACA for ten years.

Afternoon Workshops
Workshop 5: The sense of touch, the ego and the autistic spectrum with
Jackie Cox-Taylor
The sense of touch is individual. How it is received, whether it is received as pleasurable,
exciting, stimulating, relaxing or painful is individual and affected by physical states such as skin
sensitivity, pain thresholds and intensity. It is affected by preparation or surprise. It is affected
by history and intent. What does this look like for the neuro-diverse child in the classroom?
Originally from the UK, Jackie has had many years experience in curative education in both
Steiner and mainstream settings. Jackie is currently teaching children diagnosed with autism in
a special school; she is also working as a consultant for parents and teachers in mainstream
classrooms.

Workshop 6: Hearing and balance; what is their relationship? with Karen Foster
The group work will be to look at the two senses of hearing and balance individually and then their
differences and co-relation with the tool of eurythmy.
Karen is currently working as a Therapeutic Eurythmist in private practise in Brisbane. Prior to this,
she has taught eurythmy to secondary and primary students in Steiner schools in NSW and SA. She
also leads a eurythmy wellness class weekly during school terms. Karen has completed a 4 year full
time Eurythmy training and 18 month full time Therapeutic eurythmy Training.
 Workshop 7: The soul qualities of the 12 Senses - working with the
understanding of and furthering the development of the senses using the
arts with Ellen Sallows
Developing an understanding of the Soul Qualities of the 12 Senses. The practical part of this
workshop will use wet on wet painting and story. But the discussion and sharing side will
include all the arts, including the challenge given to us by Steiner to deepen and develop the
Art of Teaching, as necessary for the future.
This workshop also invites participants to bring questions and examples of students work to
delve more deeply into understanding the questions being asked of us by our students, and
toward curriculum development, and our own maturation as teachers and human beings, arising out of these questions.
Ellen is an Anthroposophical Art Therapist, Extra Lesson Practitioner and Learning Support teacher who has been working
with student well-being and developing Learning Support in Steiner schools since 1990. She has also worked as an art
therapist in Drug and Alcohol services and with homeless, traumatised teenagers where the principles of Steiner Education
and Anthroposophical Art Therapy proved supportive and transformational for these young people. She currently works in
private practice and consultancy

Workshop 8: The burning bush - the senses of speech and hearing with Alan
Drysdale
I am the I am so spoke God to Moses from the Burning Bush. Today in the consciousness
soul age, we are being asked to awaken our own I am. Speech, a consciously developed
sense is speech, is a great incarnating force for us and for children. Through developing our
sense of hearing, we learn to listen; speech reflects spiritual awareness. This workshop is
about developing the senses of speech and hearing through poetic texts.

Alan currently works as Class 6 teacher at SVSS in his third seven- year cycle. He trained at
Emerson College, England where he worked with Dawn Langman on Steiners approach to speech. He also gained a B Ed.
(First Class Hons) in Drama and Spoken Language at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. He works extensively
and intensively with speech on a daily basis with his class. He has conducted speech workshops at national conferences in
both India and Australia.

Venue
Samford Valley Steiner School is situated on 20 acres of forested land in the beautiful, rural setting of Samford Valley, only 35
minutes from the Brisbane CBD. Address is 5 Narrawa Drive, Wights Mountain, QLD 4520.

Transport
Trains run to Ferny Grove Station, which is the closest station to Samford Valley Steiner School. Participants need to arrange
their own transport to the school.

Enquiries
For all enquiries please contact Joan Weir, Marketing & Communications, Samford Valley Steiner School
jweir@samfordsteiner.qld.edu.au or 07 3430 9600.
 Learning Support Conference 10-12 March 2017 Registration Form

Name ______________________________________________________________________________________

Position/Organisation _________________________________________________________________________

Email ______________________________________________________ Phone __________________________

Workshop preferences
You attend one workshop in the morning, and one in the afternoon. Please list your first 2 choices by
workshop number

Morning session: 1st choice _____ 2nd choice _____

Afternoon sessions: 1st choice _____ 2nd choice _____

Registration Fee

Conference Only: Early Bird Fee (before 24 Feb 2017) $300 Conference Fee (after 24 Feb): $350
Conference and Classroom camping (2 nights):

Early Bird Fee & camping (before 24 Feb 2017) $340 Conference Fee & Camping (after 24 Feb): $390
Note: Fee includes morning and afternoon teas, lunch and dinner. Participants are responsible for their own
breakfast. Please note there are no concession rates available. Camping is in classrooms; please bring your
own bedding.

Payment
Please pay by direct deposit to:

Samford Valley Steiner School

BSB: 084 209 Account: 53 862 0260
Reference: [Your Name] LS Conf 2017

Please email your registration form to jweir@samfordsteiner.qld.edu.au or post to Samford Valley Steiner School, 5
Narrawa Drive, Wights Mountain, QLD 4520.
Registrations must be accompanied by payment.

Cancellation Policy
Conference registration may be cancelled, less a $50 handling fee, up to ten (10) business days prior to the activity in
writing (emails will be accepted) with participants receiving a full refund less $50. A refund will only be provided if
written notice is provided to jweir@samfordsteiner.qld.edu.au.
Registrations cancelled less than ten (10) business days prior to the commencement of the conference will not be
refunded. To have a substitute attend in your place please notify us at jweir@samfordsteiner.qld.edu.au prior to the
commencement of the event.

Samford Valley Steiner School (SVSS) reserves the right to alter this program/event or presenter without further notice;
however, the program is intended to run as advertised.
By signing up to this event you acknowledge and accept that SVSS may use any photographs / video footage taken at
the program or event, in which you may be identified, for promotional purposes or other purposes associated with or
related to the activities undertaken by SVSS.