The mission of Marin Waldorf School is to educate children to reach their highest potential with activities that fire the imagination, engage the mind, and strengthen the will.
The right choice for your child
“When you see your child developing all different aspects of themselves, that is how you know you made the right decision.”
“For me, it was the most tremendous gift my parents ever gave me.”
The Waldorf Difference
The mission of Marin Waldorf School is to educate children with love, dedication, and a fierce belief in every child’s brilliance and capacity to reach their full potential and make a positive contribution to the world. Based on the pedagogical principles of Waldorf education, our experiential and interdisciplinary curriculum emphasizes activities that engage the mind, fire the imagination, and strengthen the will in order to develop capacities and skills that can serve humanity.
Founded in Fairfax, California in 1972, Marin Waldorf School is the only accredited Waldorf school in Marin County. Our school is grounded in the time-tested Waldorf approach to education, while striving to meet the world today with a holistic educational program that considers social justice, equity, diversity, and environmental stewardship throughout the curriculum. For more than 50 years, Marin Waldorf School has offered a vibrant, experiential, and interdisciplinary curriculum that blends math, sciences, art, music, performance, healthy movement, language arts, and outdoor education.
Marin Waldorf School offers a gentle play-based early childhood education program with parent-toddler classes, preschool, and kindergarten classes that honor the natural wonder and curiosity of young children.
Our approach to elementary and middle school education is distinguished by its emphasis on hands-on experiences, interdisciplinary learning, social-emotional skills, and artistic expression throughout the curriculum. Math, language arts, science, and world languages are taught in a progressively complex sequence throughout the grades program, with a curriculum that is carefully designed to stimulate and challenge children at each stage of growth.
Marin Waldorf School resides on a beautiful 10-acre campus in Lucas Valley, with a large playing field, a woodshop, a beautiful library, and three teaching gardens. Families are welcome to visit our oak-filled campus on the weekends and take in the magic of the scenery. We are located in San Rafael, just 18 miles north of San Francisco.
Grandmother Oak Blog
MARIN WALDORF PARENTS
“When all three of my children were there it was such a great feeling as a parent to know they’re all safe in this school and thriving.”
“Waldorf School students are confident, they’re strong, they know how to relate to people...they look you in the eye.”
AGE APPROPRIATE LEARNING
The Waldorf Curriculum is based on the philosophy that education should gradually draw out all of the child's innate capacities: physical, social, emotional, artistic, and intellectual. The lessons and activities are developmentally tailored to meet the child's emergent and maturing sense of self and their relationship to the world. Our early childhood program focuses on creative play, imagination and wonder, while grades 1-8 expand into a full liberal arts curriculum.
“In linking their curriculum and schooling toward children’s developmental stages, Waldorf schools seem to have a unique sense of what children are ready for. They promote creativity and critical thinking in an interdisciplinary fashion...exactly the direction public education needs to move towards.”
“Being personally acquainted with a number of Waldorf students, I can say that they come closer to realizing their own potential than practically anyone I know.”