We offer integrated care and educational services to young people aged 3 to 25.
Our services are available to children and young people with complex additional support needs and learning disabilities aged 3 to 25. We provide opportunities for students to engage in meaningful activities that grow their skills, confidence, independence, and friendships. At Camphill School Aberdeen students feel a sense of belonging and purpose, preparing them for adulthood.
We offer both day and residential educational services to children and young people aged 5 to 25, and our Amber Kindergarten is for the youngest members of our community aged 3 to 6.
Rated 'very good' by the Care Inspectorate, 2024.
“People regularly had fun and were able to be involved in a wide range of activities and interests. This included workshops in bike maintenance, pottery and felt making. People were able to see the tangible output from their work, for example, from creating a piece of art or a fully operational bike, which provided a sense of achievement and pride,”
Care Inspectorate report 2024.
Our free Community Transport Service is used by our day and residential students at Camphill School Aberdeen to travel to appointments (hospital, dental, therapy), training and work experience, and health/wellbeing, social and leisure activities (swimming, shopping, cinema), and day trips.
Our on-site drivers make each journey bespoke for the student to ensure greater independence. For those with little or no verbal communication abilities, we use Picture Exchange Communication Systems (PECS).
Our aim is to phase out diesel and petrol vehicles with zero-emission vehicles, supporting our journey to net zero. We continue to seek funding to make this possible.
Davie, our bus driver, aka “Davie’s Diamond Service”, has transported hundreds of our students to school classes, vocational workshops, appointments, and facilities in the local community. His smile, great banter and patience ensures that our vehicles go the extra mile every day! We are delighted that Davie won Staff Member of the Year at the Celebrate Aberdeen Awards in 2022.
In our art room, students engage in a variety of processes including printmaking, paper making, painting and weaving. Students work on projects throughout the year, including creating Christmas cards, printing tote bags, and the workshop even designed Murtle Market’s logo!
Our wood workshop, our children and young people make useful items such as handles for tools, baseball bats or legs for a stool or bench. For these, they turn green wood on a pole lathe and use other techniques to create beautiful products. They often carve bowls and spoons but also work on their own ideas – we’ve seen superheroes and Hogwarts coming out of the workshop.
We have several looms in our weavery, which our children and young people learn to use. They find the peaceful atmosphere and often rhythmical activity to be beneficial, making beautiful table runners, bags, tablecloths and other items. They also card wool and weave baskets.
The felt workshop, which has a therapeutic focus, engages students in both wet felting and needle felting to make amazing products like wall hangings, felted animals or plants, bags, hot water bottle holders and fairy light flowers. The felt workshop uses the wool from sheep that live on our farm wherever possible.
In our pottery workshop, every student takes a turn on the pottery wheel and gets involved with beadmaking, brickmaking, art projects and clay recycling. The mugs used in Murtle Market have all been made by our young people in the pottery workshop!
This workshop gives our students the opportunity to work with different techniques in metal and jewellery. From copper bowls and Tibetan sound bowls to wax and bronze casting, jewellery from recycled glass and wire, to key rings and decorative objects, outputs are very varied.
The candle workshop is a seasonal workshop where candles in different colours, shapes and sizes are made. Mainly active in the lead-up to Christmas, the candles are often gifted to the families of our young people or sold at our craft exhibitions.
Across our estates, we have three large gardens that produce fruit and vegetables for our residential houses. In these gardens, our young people learn how to sow, plant, maintain and develop all aspects of land cultivation.
On the farm, students help look after our cows and calves, pigs, sheep, chickens, pygmy goats and alpacas. They also support staff by mucking out stables, preparing feeds, collecting eggs, stacking wood, moving animals or walking alpacas.
As we offer a wide range of equine therapies and have an onsite farm, a range of horses live on our estate. This means we have stables and indoor and outdoor sand arenas for the horses to enjoy.
The young people are involved in looking after the horses and their environment, which includes feeding and grooming as well as keeping the stables and arenas clean.
Our students get involved in ongoing projects on our grounds to give them ownership of their environment. Tasks can vary from raking leaves, pruning, clearing or building paths, planting bulbs and sowing grass. Often this happens in a group setting, which focuses on social interaction.
Our bike repair workshop repairs bikes that have either been donated or brought in by members of our community and other organisations such as Police Scotland.
Students learn how to repair and maintain all aspects of bikes, including fixing punctures, replacing brakes or wheels, and cleaning the bikes.
FRUVER is our internal distribution centre that delivers organic fruit and vegetables – some from our gardens – and a wide range of dried goods to buildings across our estate.
Our young people make up the orders, weigh, refill and deliver goods to our residential houses by foot and cargo bike.
The public-facing arm of FRUVER, Murtle Market, is our sustainable social enterprise refillery, shop, café, and heritage hub. Students are involved in serving customers on the tills, stamping the Murtle Market logo on takeaway cups, creating the art that’s displayed, and tending to the gardens in which the fruit and veg grows.
Therapeutic art supports individuals in expressing their inner world through a holistic, person-centred approach, focused on their particular needs. Upbuilding and harmonising creative processes are used, which might include drawing, painting and modelling from imagination or observation. Counselling, play and mindfulness exercises can be incorporated to enrich the art, encouraging integration and greater self-awareness
In therapeutic music sessions, children and young people create or experience live music on a wide range of instruments, individually or in groups. Musical activities can be tailored to promote dialogue, and the expression and release of tension. Their musical skills improve and the music evokes a mood or atmosphere, which helps the students to connect to their inner feelings.
Eurythmy is expressive movement related to the sounds of both language and music. It’s an enjoyable artistic experience. Specific movements can be chosen to suit the needs of the individual students, targeted at physical, mental and emotional health. Results can be general vitality, lower tension levels or anxiety, enhanced coordination and spatial orientation, and improvement in circulation and breathing.
Therapeutic speech is an artistic therapy that uses elements of speech and drama such as rhythms, sound qualities, dramatic gesture and content as the therapeutic medium. Individual tailored programmes of guided speech and breathing exercises supported by specific movement activities can address developmental, emotional and physical difficulties. We've found it to be beneficial for both verbal and non-verbal students.
Targets can be set for all levels of communication including pre-verbal skills, non-verbal and verbal communication, from single word production and comprehension to higher-level processing (problem solving, reasoning).
Therapeutic Exercises involve aspects of movement, flexibility, rhythm, balance, coordination, concentration, sensory integration and play. Gentle workouts and exercises involving balance are practised to help students feel more grounded and present, which may help to lower anxiety and tension. Through becoming more conscious of their own movement, participants achieve greater skill and self-control. The therapy also aims to develop a sense of competence as a driver for further development and self-confidence.
Rhythmical massage therapy (RMT) is a remedial form of massage that uses a gentle, rhythmical, breathing quality of touch, which can penetrate the tissues deeply. The oils and ointments are specifically chosen for each student. A massage session is followed by a therapeutic rest. RMT harmonises breathing, eases muscle tension and increases the sense of well-being. Physical and emotional development is supported through strengthening of healthy rhythmical processes within the body. It can be used to address sleep disturbances, respiratory conditions, headaches, constipation and metabolic disturbances, rheumatic disorders and neurological conditions.
Play therapy helps children express their inner feelings and emotions. In an imaginative, safe and child-led way, they can act out their concerns and fantasies. The therapist reflects aspects of the play process back to the child, which can improve self-awareness.
The baths are given at a specific temperature with specially chosen substances, usually oils, dispersed in the water. The student is immersed in the water allowing the skin to absorb the substance, and rests after the bath. The baths have a wide range of benefits, for example stimulating the body’s warmth, improving blood circulation, boosting the immune system and supporting the experience of the bodily boundaries. They help physical and emotional well-being.
These therapies are based on bringing together horses and young people to promote emotional growth and learning. The riding therapy develops riding skills and confidence. Hippotherapy is bareback riding, on a blanket only, so that the horse’s movements can be felt by the rider to improve posture, awareness and rhythm. Equine-assisted therapy focuses on various exercises with the horse, such as leading the horse round a series of obstacles without a lead rope, and care management of the horse such as grooming, shoeing and feeding. Working with horses can help people discover more about themselves, develop skills and find new ways of thinking. It’s particularly beneficial for the student’s confidence, memory and concentration, communication and relationships, balance and coordination.
Central Office
Murtle Estate
Bieldside
Aberdeen
AB15 9EP
General Enquiries:
office@crss.org.uk
Admissions Enquiries:
admissionshub@crss.org.uk
© Camphill Rudolf Steiner Schools Limited 2024. All Rights Reserved
Camphill Rudolf Steiner Schools Limited is a Scottish charity known as Camphill School Aberdeen. A Limited Company registered in Scotland.Registered Office: Brodies House 31-33 Union Grove Aberdeen AB10 6SD.
Correspondence Address: CSA, Murtle Office, Murtle Estate, Bieldside, Aberdeen. Registered Company No. SC103899 Registered Charity No. SC015588.
