Our Founder

John Miles

John Miles is a long-time anthroposophist and Waldorf teacher. Since 1974, he has taken more than three classes through as a class teacher and has taught adult courses in the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and the United States. After decades of training, experience and research, John completed development of the Micha-el Curriculum in 1999. A rigorous three-year teacher training, the Micha-el Curriculum offers the most comprehensive certificate available for Early Childhood and Grades teachers. John soon after founded the Micha-el Institute for Anthroposophy, the Arts, and Waldorf-Inspired Teacher Training. Since that time, The Micha-el Institute has prepared a generation of teachers to work in Waldorf inspired-schools around the world.

John and Valerie Miles were personally trained for ten years by Juliette and Vera Compton-Burnett. These sisters studied for many years with Rudolf and Marie Steiner and were given the tasks by Rudolf Steiner of bringing eurythmy and speech formation to the English-speaking world.

John has produced a complete range of source books, available through Promethean Press, for Waldorf-Inspired teachers, covering music, speech, drama, and geometry, as well as making pedagogical research available in English to teachers and parents working out of a Waldorf-Inspired impulse.

John has ​run and owned two music stores, and is largely responsible for the introduction of Choroi musical instruments into the United Kingdom and Canada.

Valerie Miles studied anthroposophical painting with Karo Bergmann of Dusseldorf and has been a class teacher for 45 years. She has a masters degree in anthroposophical art therapy from the Tobias School of Art in the United Kingdom.