Finger games
Sir: I read with particular interest Brien Masters's denial of Angela Huth's critic- isms of the Rudolf Steiner system of education in view of the recent announce- ment that a City Technology College is to be set up in Brighton under the aegis — or at least with the approval — of the Steiner Foundation. Now I may have got the wrong end of the stick, but I did not have the impression that the ethos of CTCs was that the pupils were to spend 'about half their time' on a 'broad-based holistic curri- culum', or that 'clapping and finger games' (except perhaps for manipulating compu- ter keyboards) was to figure in their nine-hour working day. Indeed, I under- stood the object was to 'stretch' and `pressurise' the children in exactly the way Mr Masters says is not part of the Steiner philosophy.
The proposed Brighton CTC is to be known as the Michael Faraday College, after a respected exponent of Steiner methods. It is apparently to receive £7.2 million from the Government, the £1.8 million balance to be provided by a com- pany registered in Essex called Greenleaf Planters. The company, which is not trad- ing, has a capital of £100,000, and its two directors, apparently husband and wife, live in Forest Row and are said to be connected with the Steiner Schools Fel- lowship (also based in Forest Row) of which Mr Masters is the Chairman. Some mistake, surely?
Ann Moore
Hancox, Whatlington, Battle, East Sussex
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