A new independent school hopes to open its doors in Carlisle this autumn.

The first children could start kindergarten at Holme Head School, in Denton Holme, in September.

It aims to offer an “alternative” education inspired by the Steiner Fellowship and would have no more than eight to 10 children in a class.

The Steiner ethos is to provide creatives places where children can develop and learn without focusing on academic demands such as literacy and numeracy that are seen in mainstream schooling.

Core subjects of the curriculum are taught in thematic blocks. Lessons tend to be more artistic and practical and whole class, mixed ability teaching is the norm.

Initially, Holme Head School will cater for younger children – three, four and five-year-olds.

Longer-term aims are to grow the school year by year until the full 3-18 age range is covered.

It will operate on weekdays in term time from Holme Head House, a community atelier owned by Carlisle nursery proprietor Emmy Sealey and her husband Roger.

Mother-of-two Alison Pate, 30, of Newtown Road, called a meeting in February to gauge interest about her idea.

She and the Sealey family now form part of a small team developing the proposals.


Gareth Presch They are joined by fellow Carlisle parent Megan Anderson Fraser and Gareth Presch, from WHIS (World Health Innovation Summit) Kids.

Mrs Pate, who has two daughters – one aged 20 months and a three-and-a-half year old, said: “I put forward the idea to do an independent school that offers an alternative education because there is no education alternative in Carlisle. I’d looked in to home schooling but it isn’t for me.

“We want the school to be affordable and we’re working with the WHIS Kids programme to work on that.

“It will be affiliated to the Steiner Fellowship but it will not be a full Steiner school because we want to offer something new. We are going to take the best bits of Steiner, Montessori and others and then as we grow with experience we can develop ourselves.”

She added: “One of the biggest differences between Steiner and mainstream education is in those early years. Steiner don’t teach reading and writing until the age of seven but when you look at their results later on they are exactly the same.

“It is about getting children emotionally mature before starting to focus on things like teaching them to read and write. There would be no testing and we wouldn’t do exams apart from GCSE and A-levels, and they would be optional.”

The school would be a not-for-profit operation with fees paying for staff training and equipment.

A fundraising day planned for May 29 aims to raise money to cover initial training and equipment costs.

The team is putting together an application to register the independent school and seek government backing.