The Modern Teacher team
Sven Saar
Sven Saar was a Waldorf class and high school teacher for 30 years and now works in teacher education in Europe, the US, Asia and Australia. He is co-director of The Modern Teacher: Education as Art, advising teachers and schools in over 40 countries in developing their approaches to mindful, holistic education.
Alan Swindell
Alan has had a distinguished career as a class teacher, teacher trainer, adviser for the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship and, in recent years, as the first principal of the Steiner Academy Exeter.
Waldorf Modern Teacher Education Community Interest Company Directors
Shabda Pryia
Shabda Priya spent 41 years in Bombay, moving to Hyderabad in 2021. In 2016, she met Waldorf Education and Anthroposophy in search of a humane education for her children. Since then, she has grown manifold due to her association with Anthroposophy and its various streams, and the community. She served as Grades teacher in a Waldorf-Inspired school in Navi Mumbai. In 2021, she completed a national certificate course in Biography Counselling and is a certified Biography Analyst. She is currently associated with Abhaya Waldorf School in Hyderabad, lending a hand in teacher support and training. She is a member of the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society in India. Her task and role is to support the regular activities and intent of the Society.
Paul White
Having moved from a Christian Brothers’ school in Birkenhead, to a large comprehensive in Norfolk and then on to a Philosophy, Politics and Economics degree at Oxford, Paul emerged into adulthood with a very confused picture of what education was about. Despite his best efforts at avoiding addressing this confusion, taking up jobs in everything from building, international aid, working as a chef, a farmer, even a film director’s assistant, this question of what a good education might be stubbornly refused to go away. Gradually there was a shift, so where before teaching was a means of experiencing life in very different cultures - Chile, Brazil, Japan, Ireland, Mauritius, Ecuador - mostly through working with the British Council, more and more the teaching/learning became his primary interest. Inevitably (?) Paul found his way to Waldorf and anthroposophy, beginning his first Class Teacher journey at the turn of the millennium in New Zealand. After completing his ‘round’ Paul became Senior Lecturer for the Steiner programme of the B.Ed at AUT university, Auckland and then Director of the Education programme at Taruna, the anthroposophical adult education centre. He returned to England to be part of the wave of Steiner Free schools, becoming the first class one teacher at Frome Steiner Academy, and, save a two year period helping set up the Lotus Garden Waldorf-inspired school in Myanmar, has been involved teaching in Steiner schools here since. Outside the classroom Paul’s main passion is the performing arts and he continues to write, direct, produce and occasionally even act in plays and short films from his current home in Brighton.
Jenny Bolsius
Jenny Bolsius is a non-executive member of WMTE CIC. She has 25 years’ experience in Waldorf class-teaching, mentoring and learning support at the Steiner Academy and Elmfield. Jenny has also worked for five years in the field of child protection in a residential family assessment centre, as a link between vulnerable families and social services. Jenny holds a certificate in Waldorf Education from the London Teacher Training Seminar, a FdA in Learning Disabilities and Autism and a BA(Hons) in Social Welfare from the University of Worcester.
Dr Kate Attfield
Kate has been a parent and Trustee at Cardiff Steiner School for 10 years. She holds the roles of upper school educational governance, human resources, safeguarding, and equality, diversity and inclusion governance. She is a university lecturer and researcher in inclusive citizenship at Cardiff Metropolitan University and has published some academic papers on Steiner education, having secured research funding from Hermes Trust and ASinGB for some of these. She presented a conference paper at the Skovoroda University, Ukraine on Waldorf education and subsequently established a Waldorf research partnership with Ukrainian colleagues. She is Topic Editor for the international academic journal Frontiers in Education with two colleagues in California on Steiner education.