Individualized

Small classes provide quality, individualized instruction. ​​Learning takes place in an environment of compassion and safety, where every child feels seen and heard. ​

Interdisciplinary

The curriculum is a unique blend of traditional and innovative elements. By encouraging students to draw connections across subjects, we work to​​ ​deepen their natural love of learning. ​​

Experiential

A hands-on approach allows each subject to be explored through many modalities and activities including field investigations, drama, drawing, movement, and music. 
Our highest endeavor ​must be to develop free human beings, who are able of themselves to impart purpose
and direction to their lives.     
      ~Rudolf Steiner

Purposeful Education

Students at Hearthstone School are taught through an integrated, developmentally-appropriate,  Waldorf-based approach that reveals the interrelatedness of all knowledge. Our curriculum is designed to bring academics to life through the arts and the natural world. Not only academic subjects, but also life skills are learned—from hand crafts to conflict resolution.

​At Hearthstone, we cultivate a spirit of ownership and community by emphasizing responsibility and cooperation, respect for others, reverence for nature, and a sense of unity with all life. Children see their parents involved in the daily life of the school, form close relationships with teachers, and actively participate in the wider community through service projects.​

Hearthstone welcomes students of every race, color, gender, religion, ethnicity or national origin. ​

Celebrating Childhood Since 1996

​Hearthstone was founded in 1996 as a parent cooperative for nursery/kindergarten through 12th grade. Our students are drawn from the surrounding six-county area of Rappahannock, Culpeper, Fauquier, Madison, Warren, and Page.

We moved to our current site in 2000 and worked to renovate the main school building, the lower school building for Nursery through Second Grades, and the pottery studio. Renovations to the first floor of the main school building were completed in 2004; it now houses a large Community Room, the Rainbow Market, and several therapy offices. Renovations to the lower level of the main school building were completed in the fall of 2005; it houses the school administration office, classrooms, music room, arts and crafts room, library, and kiln room.

All children are honored at Hearthstone School.

Hearthstone sees a child as a complex, evolving organism. He or she is not a passive vessel to be filled with information. We regard each child as a powerful and precious force of Being, unfolding into the world, and in need of guidance, protection, inspiration, and nurturing. Just as a child's body grows, so does his or her inner life. Of paramount concern to us at all times is the inner and outer development of every child.​

 Careful attention is paid to the child's intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual growth.
The arts (poetry, drama, studio art, music, sculpture, textiles, and cooking) are used as tools to teach, among other things, inner grounding and focus, creativity, and individual empowerment. These art forms bring the world of ideas not just into the mind of a good student, but into the heart, mind, and hands of a good person.