We are now accepting applications for enrollment in our 2021-2022 classes. We will have spaces available in our mixed age kindergarten (ages 4-6), first and second grade classes.
Please visit our newly added photo gallery!
Outdoor classrooms offer a safer option for holding in-person class amid the ongoing COVID19 pandemic, minimizing the need for remote/online learning. We offer a Waldorf-inspired program held Monday through Friday in our outdoor classrooms.
Remote learning is limited to days when inclement weather, health, or safety concerns prohibit gathering in outdoor spaces. For more information on the daily, in person schedule, and what remote learning days look like, please visit the 'Daily Rhythms' tab in the drop down menu above.
In addition to Main Lesson, our program offers specials including watercolor painting, modeling, form drawing, games, music, Mandarin Chinese, and handwork.
Classrooms are set in beautiful wooded areas with large wooded play spaces and hiking paths.
Classroom spaces used by The Unity School offer shelter from the elements such as sun and mild/moderate rain.
Outdoor classrooms allow our students to experience our natural world and the true temperatures and moods of the seasons. Classrooms are equipped with fans for the warmer months, and electric heating elements for the cooler months as necessary. However, clothing does need to be appropriate for the season.
Open air environments greatly reduce the potential of transmission not only of COVID19, but of all the viral illnesses children typically pass back and forth throughout the fall and winter months. In addition to being outdoors, classroom desks are spaced appropriately, and a hand washing stations are be available in the classroom spaces.
Children are required to wear masks, with designated times during the day when appropriate spacing in addition to the open air environment allow children a break from mask wearing. Masks are provided by The Unity School, with a different mask color assigned for each day of the week. All the children wearing the same colored mask each day provides our students with a sense of unity, and lessons the burden on parents.
The decision to move to an all outdoor classroom model was made after research into recent statistics showed a decrease in disease transmission in an outdoor environment. Interestingly, there is precedent for the outdoor classroom model for health and safety of children during times of a pandemic. In the early 20th century, students in New York City were moved to outdoor leaning environments in an effort to stop the spread of pandemics of the time, including diseases such as tuberculosis. Here is a link to an article we found both interesting and inspiring. The article is linked on the Research Articles tab below.
Additionally, research published during the last several years demonstrates significant benefits gained by utilizing outdoor leaning environments. Documented benefits include improved behavior, attention, social-emotional development, grades, and even standardized test scores. Please visit the Research Articles page of this website or click the button below for more information about the substantial benefits of outdoor classroom learning!
All classrooms are set in beautiful wooded areas. Children play in large natural outdoor spaces with abundant opportunities for exploration and creativity. Classes utilize wooded hiking trails for teacher-led adventures.
We are actively seeking land on which to build The Unity School's permanent location. At the same time, we are seeking donors, sponsors, fundraisers and benefactors! Our ideal space will consist of 3-5 acres, and remain within 20 minutes of our current location.
We live in a beautiful and diverse city with so many magnificent outdoor spaces in which to learn and explore. In addition to regular outdoor classroom spaces and as the risks of the current health crisis diminish , we hope to take advantage of the many green spaces around us - Umstead Park, the NC Art Museum, the Greenway - to enhance not only our students' learning, but their experience of education and the world around them.
We also plan to involve The Unity School students in community service projects and volunteerism as an integrated part of the curriculum. This year, community involvement will happen as health and safety allow, but may include things such as community food drives for donations to our local shelters. By combining classroom learning with an experience of what we can each contribute to our community around us, we aim to cultivate and develop strong-minded, self-confident, creative, and kind human beings.
Through the loving and intentional education of the child, as inspired by the principles and pillars of Waldorf education, our mission is to raise a community of children to become determined in their lifelong quest for knowledge, confident in the face of uncertainty, kind in the face of unkindness, creative in their explorations for t
Through the loving and intentional education of the child, as inspired by the principles and pillars of Waldorf education, our mission is to raise a community of children to become determined in their lifelong quest for knowledge, confident in the face of uncertainty, kind in the face of unkindness, creative in their explorations for truth, open to the truth of others, and able to find strength and peace within in the midst of chaos and discord.
Our vision is to educate the child in mind, body and spirit so that they may contribute their unique gifts to humanity with conviction and clarity of their life’s purpose, and to create a supportive and nourishing learning community that cherishes each individual. Each year the school will seek to employ teachers with Waldorf teache
Our vision is to educate the child in mind, body and spirit so that they may contribute their unique gifts to humanity with conviction and clarity of their life’s purpose, and to create a supportive and nourishing learning community that cherishes each individual. Each year the school will seek to employ teachers with Waldorf teacher training certificates or those who are engaged in Waldorf teacher training and are being mentored/supervised in the Waldorf pedagogy. We plan to add one grade each year and to continue to expand our Early Childhood program. In the 2021-2022 school year we will have first and second grade classes and 2 Early Childhood classes.
The Unity School opened as an outdoor program in response to the global pandemic. However, we are committed to remaining primarily an outdoor program going forward, but providing more shelter options for days when inclement weather call for an indoor learning environment. Our vision includes locating on a piece of land that will support both open air stuctures and more permanent shelters.
In the midst of our current environment, and with schools across NC and the country closed, this may seem like an unlikely time to have launched a new school. But The Unity School was envisioned before the changes caused by the pandemic. In fact the dream for an academic program that utilizes principles of Waldorf education in our capita
In the midst of our current environment, and with schools across NC and the country closed, this may seem like an unlikely time to have launched a new school. But The Unity School was envisioned before the changes caused by the pandemic. In fact the dream for an academic program that utilizes principles of Waldorf education in our capital city has been dreamt for many years by our founders. Now the dream has become a reality. Our social and academic environment has changed and will continue to evolve as we face the challenges of educating our children during the pandemic. With many schools having moved to online classrooms and the evident need to truly tailor learning, not only to each child's needs, but to that of each family, the large, chaotic and demanding model of standardized academics already seems like something of the past. The Unity School offers a nurturing, calm, and gentle space in which children may grow academically with a solid and secure foundation. Utilizing outdoor classrooms as our primary platform, resorting to online, virtual lessons only when health or inclement weather requires it, children at The Unity School are held by their teacher and parent community in flexible collaboration. This allows the children the freedom to focus on the important work of healthy development in mind, body and spirit while developing a community of peers they travel with through the grades. Basically being a kid! Now is the time for small environments; to minimize the stress of standardized testing and evaluation; to give our children a gentle, soul- nourishing education in the face of chaos and uncertainty; to create close and supportive community for and with our children. For these reasons and so many more, now is the time.
The Unity School adheres to pedagogical principles that are more than a set of academic guidelines. Rather, these principles speak to the many factors which contribute to the fundamental development of the child. While formal academics may be limited to the classroom, development takes place everywhere and is influenced by everything: emotional dynamics in the home, media exposure, games, sleep, diet - all these elements affecting child development are addressed and supported with ongoing guidance provided by our educators.
We at The Unity School are working to create a community of families, with a shared goal of raising our children intentionally.
We will be organizing and hosting parent education nights, sharing suggested readings, and facilitating book groups for continued parent education on topics such as child development and Waldorf-inspired education.
We also ask families who attend The Unity School to embrace school policies and requests which may affect our children at home. These may be things such as limiting media exposure and screen time, and sending children to school with healthy, wholesome lunches to support their ability to concentrate, learn and grow. What our children do at home affects them and their peers in the classroom, and to this end we foster a cohesive community in which parents are supportive of one another in our collective quest to do the very best for our children.
The Unity School does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or national origin in its employment policies, educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.
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