It’s official: The Kindergarten at Rosemary Hill has a new home!

Months of fundraising, building, planning, renovating and just plain hard work had to be revealed and celebrated in grand style.

Although we have officially changed the name of the nursery school (the start of many new and exciting things to come!), The Kindergarten at Rosemary Hill will maintain its Waldorf character and is still part of Max Stibbe Waldorf School. (You will notice we have temporarily changed the masthead of this edition of Max Stibbe Matters to the new logo of The Kindergarten.)

This past Saturday, 7 May, The Kindergarten staff hosted the official opening of The Kindergarten’s new building. Guests arrived to find newly erected sign boards, displaying the new name and branding of The Kindergarten. After Thomas Franken’s brief overview of the history of the nursery school and his acknowledgement of all the generous donors to the project in front of the baby and toddler classroom (a new feature), the guests all moved to the entrance of the building. All the while, the children were enjoying themselves playing on the newly constructed jungle gyms in the beautiful gardens of The Kindergarten. Eugenie van der Spuy, the teacher when the nursery school first opened its doors in 1977, constructed a beautiful bronze foundation stone in the shape of a dodecahedron. A prayer was translated into all 11 our official languages and put inside together with blessings from some of the other cultures represented in our school. Huibert Franken, a founder member of the Max Stibbe Waldorf School and one of the project leaders of the renovation project, then read the powerful words of Dr. Rudolf Steiner with the opening of the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919. The foundation stone was placed into the ground by Jeanette van der Byl, a long-time teacher at Max Stibbe Waldorf School and presently the administrative head of The Kindergarten.

Guests were treated to delicious snacks and sandwiches from Rosemary Hill while taking a leisurely stroll through the gardens and classrooms.

Thank you to each and every one who celebrated this special day with us. We were particularly blessed with the presence of all our nursery school teachers, past and present, attending this ceremony. What a legacy and a momentous occasion in the history of our school!

(Please visit our new website at www.thekindergarten.co.za and encourage friends, family and any other interested persons to do so too.)