What does it mean that a curriculum has both a horizontal and vertical structure?
According to Clouder and Rawson (1998, pp 26-27) the horizontal and vertical structured curriculum means that all subjects taught in one year are integrated within larger themes which stand as motifs for that age. The tenor of each years curriculum is guided by the developmental needs of the children at that age. Each subject is in this sense a part of a whole. As children grow and move up the school from year to year, from class to class, they naturally encounter the same subjects or rather the development of each subject. This forms a kind of spiral learning experience. Each time the child returns to a subject, there is the opportunity for the childs experience to broaden and deepen as well as building on previous memories that both the children and their teacher have shared. The rhythm of immersion in a theme, then allowing it to settle or sink into the background, is a key feature of Waldorf education. The interludes between periods are seen as phases of unconscious activity within
