Browsing by Author "Luuri, Tytti"

This study aims to find out the views and experiences of planning time of kindergarten teachers in the City of Helsinki. In this study, planning time refers to the time kindergarten teachers use to plan their group’s activities. In previous studies on planning time, it has been discovered that there has been significantly less planning time for teachers in the capitol city area. This study was performed with a University of Helsinki e-form inquiry, which was sent to every kindergarten in the City of Helsinki. A total of 115 kindergarten teachers responded. The study was mainly quantitative, but it had some characteristics of qualitative study, as the e-form included an open question. The data was handled with an SPSS-program, from which it was exported to Excel for making charts. Reponses to the open question were analysed based on their content. In kindergartens in the City of Helsinki, teachers had an average of 1 hour 12 minutes planning time a week. 51 % of respondents had planning time outside of working hours. Planning was usually done in group spaces, and the most usual time was during the children’s resting time. Over half of the respondents, 66 %, used the children’s personal early childhood education plans as well as the plans of the kindergarten to help with planning. Responses to the open question brought up many different things concerning planning time. I divided these responses to five main groups, which were lack of resources, defining planning time content, structural changes, activity of superiors and team planning.