Qualifications/Training

  • FdA Steiner Waldorf Early Childhood Education from the University of Plymouth
  • BD Hons in Divinity from St David’s University College, Lampeter
  • PGCE (3-13 years)

Janet Brackenbury – Kindergarten Teacher (Rose Garden)

Janet joined us in September 2018 as our Rose Garden Kindergarten Teacher. Janet has 12 years experience as a Steiner Waldorf Kindergarten Teacher – 11 years at Nant-y-Cwm Steiner School in Pembrokeshire, and prior to that at the Gower Kindergarten Steiner Initiative.

She began her teaching career in mainstream education as a Reception Teacher, where she began to develop her interest in imaginative, play-based education. She came across Steiner Education at Nant-y-Cwm and found that it matched with her own philosophies and “just made sense”.

Janet set up a Steiner Parent and Child group in the Gower in 2004 and began her Kindergarten Teacher Training through the University of Plymouth. She ran the Gower Initiative’s Waldorf inspired Kindergarten two days a week, offering children and their families a rounded, holistic, education. Janet moved to West Wales where her oldest child could attend Nant-y-Cwm Steiner School and started working as a Kindergarten Teacher there in 2007.

Janet enjoys working with parents and feels the most important part of being a Kindergarten Teacher is “being with the children, holding them in the nourishing, safe space of Kindergarten, supporting their individual needs and strengths, and offering them a strong rhythm that carries them through the day, week and year and supports their growth.”

Janet’s has a deep understanding of the role of Kindergarten Teacher and loves “movement, stories, singing, painting, observing, supporting play, craft, sewing, felting, knitting animals, problem solving, being outside, gardening, cooking, celebrating, teaching, beauty,  … all of which make up Kindergarten life.”