So, some catch up news on the Bristol Steiner School – or as it was briefly known in its desperate rebranding phase, the Bristol Waldorf School – has finally shut its doors. Announced with the usual platitudes about “great sadness” and “dedicated efforts,” the school will close for good on December 17, 2025. Parents and staff are scrambling for alternatives, but let’s be too sad: this closure isn’t a tragedy. It’s a merciful end to yet another outpost of Rudolf Steiner’s bizarre anthroposophical fantasy world, masquerading as progressive education. For those of us who’ve been shining a light on these quack institutions for years, it’s a small victory in the battle against this insidious and dishonest cultish education system.
If you’re new to the Quackometer’s long-standing exposé of Steiner/Waldorf schools, allow me to recap. These places aren’t the “humanistic, child-centred havens” they’re sold as. No, they’re deeply rooted in the occult ramblings of Rudolf Steiner, a self-proclaimed clairvoyant who founded anthroposophy – a mishmash of gnostic Christianity, reincarnation, karma, and racial hierarchies that ought to make even the most ardent New Ager blush. Steiner believed human souls evolve through incarnations, taking on different racial forms, with Aryans at the pinnacle of spiritual development. If you are Black? Just “immature souls,” according to his paternalistic racism. And thn there is all his “spiritual science,” where the heart isn’t a pump, plants are influenced by cosmic forces, and education is all about midwifing souls through re-incarnation into their physical bodies. Unless you are part of the initiated core of the cult, these occult aims for the school will not be revealed to parents – and sometimes some of the teachers.
Bristol Waldorf School, like all Steiner schools, hid this occult core behind a facade of creativity and nature-loving vibes. Founded over 50 years ago on Redland Hill, it promised a “holistic” approach: music, woodworking, gardening, all to “foster curiosity and community.” Sounds lovely, right? But scratch the surface, and you find the same old Steiner playbook. Delayed reading until the adult teeth appear (lest it harm the etheric body), eurythmy dances to embody spiritual rhythms, and a history, geography and art curriculum steeped in myths interpreted through anthroposophical lenses. Parents are lured in with talk of individualised education, only to discover – often too late – that their kids are being subtly groomed for a lifetime in the anthroposophical network including biodynamic farms, Weleda “healthcare” and cosmetics, Triodos Bank and Camphill communities.
This school’s troubles aren’t new; the are systemic. Back in 2023, it teetered on the brink of closure due to financial woes – deficits racking up to £1.28 million, dwindling enrolment, and the post-pandemic squeeze. A frantic community campaign raised nearly £1 million to keep it afloat, complete with petitions and global pleas from Steiner devotees. But the reprieve was short-lived. Enter the June 2025 Ofsted inspection, which slapped it with an “inadequate” rating – the kiss of death for any school, but especially one already on life support.
The report was damning, and oh-so-familiar to anyone who’s followed Steiner scandals. A “weak culture of safeguarding” that left children at risk of harm? Check. High absence rates, ineffective leadership, and flaws in supporting special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)? Check. Gaps in knowledge blamed on the “alternative” Waldorf curriculum? Of course. Ofsted didn’t mince words: lack of “vigilance,” systemic management failures, and an overall setup that prioritised Steiner’s esoteric whims over actual child welfare. This is alarmingly familiar to the disasters at other Steiner outposts – remember Steiner Academy Exeter’s “dysfunctional leadership” and “unsafe supervision” in 2018? Or the Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley’s appalling safeguarding lapses that led to its permanent closure? Bristol Waldorf fits the pattern: chaotic, ill-disciplined, and deliberately so, because that’s what Steiner demanded. No hierarchies, just a “council of teachers” making decisions by unanimity – a recipe for inefficiency and cover-ups.
Let’s not forget the risk factors for child abuse that plague these schools. In Steiner’s world, bullying might be dismissed as “karma working itself out,” and professional boundaries are fuzzy at best. Teachers double as spiritual guides, fostering unhealthy dependencies. Anti-vaccination sentiments run rife, turning schools into measles hotspots. Bristol’s safeguarding weaknesses weren’t just bureaucratic slips; they’re baked into the anthroposophical ethos of the school. The schools are meant to be like this. As one whistleblower, Grégoire Perra, detailed in his suppressed account (which the Steiner movement fought tooth and nail to bury), these schools create an insular universe where anthroposophical precepts seep into every ritual, verse, and lesson – all without parents’ informed consent.
Some will blame the closure on external forces: the UK Labour government’s VAT on private school fees, or broader economic pressures. Nonsense. This school’s deficits predate those policies by years, and the real killer was the erosion of parental confidence after that Ofsted bombshell. Enrollment plummeted because word got out – thanks to media scrutiny and online forums – about the occult underbelly. No more hiding behind “non-denominational” claims while reciting Steiner’s prayers disguised as poems.
So, is this the beginning of the end for Steiner education in the UK? One can hope. With public funding drying up and Ofsted finally pulling the wool from their eyes, these quack schools are facing the resistible rise they once enjoyed in reverse. Bristol Waldorf’s board cited “inability to achieve financial and enrolment stability,” but the subtext is clear: you can’t sustain a school built on deception and pseudoscience forever.
As of today, there are 19 operational Steiner/Waldorf schools remaining in the UK following the closure of Bristol Waldorf Steiner School on December 17, 2025. This total includes 18 independent schools and 1 state-funded academy (Hereford), based on the latest directory from Waldorf UK (the national representative body) and recent reports.
The peak number of Steiner/Waldorf schools in the UK was about 35, reached around 2017–2018 before a wave of closures began, primarily due to Ofsted inspections citing safeguarding failures, inadequate teaching standards, and financial pressures. This total included both independent schools and the short-lived state-funded Steiner academies in Hereford, Frome, Bristol, and Exeter. By early 2019, the last three state “Free Schools”, started by Michael Gove’s reforms had closed, reducing the count to about 32 independents, with further declines in subsequent years.
This is a dramatic drop off in a short space of time. But this has been a long time coming. There is no excuse now for parents to be unaware of the cult origins of the school and its esoteric and mystical pedagogy. Simple web searches will reveal sites like my own here and spell out what they are putting their children into.
Parents, if you’re considering a Steiner/Waldorf option for your child, do your homework. Read the fine print – or better yet, read Steiner himself. Do not rely on what the school says to you. They will mislead you. His views on race, reincarnation, and “spiritual science” are as outdated, bonkers and offensive as they are unproven. Your kids deserve real education, not a ticket to an occult echo chamber. And to the anthroposophists scrambling to spin this: transparency is your enemy; it’s the sunlight that disinfects.
Leave a Reply