A message from the Proprietors Trust and the Board of Trustees

Changes to the Kindergarten

At the Board of Trustees meeting on Monday evening the Proprietors Trust notified the Board of Trustees that they have made the decision to withdraw from having oversight of the ECE provision of our Kindergarten.

This decision has not been taken lightly or quickly - the Proprietors Trust have been debating this issue for at least the last two years.

The main reason driving this decision was financial. Aside from this year the Kindergarten has run at between a $50,000 and $90,000 loss each year over the last three years.

What this means for Raphael House

As we will not hold an ECE license, from 2023 we will not be able to enrol children until they turn five years old.

We understand that this decision may come as a shock to some of you, especially those who have younger children yet to start at Raphael House. We want to assure you that we remain committed to maintaining the special character aspects of a Waldorf Kindergarten education and are fortunate that in the greater Wellington area we have both the Wellington City Rudolf Steiner Kindergarten (Thorndon) and the Steiner Cottage (Laery Street). We will be working with them to develop a new pathway for children transitioning to Raphael House.

Next steps

Over the remainder of 2021 we will run consultation rounds to redesign how a Waldorf kindergarten can look within the required legal changes of being a School, and not an Early Childhood Centre. We will then be using 2022 to prepare for these changes to start in 2023.