Browsing by Subject "koulusiirtymä"
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(2023)In Finland, children transition from pre-primary education to primary education in the year when the child turns seven years old. Children are already preparing for their schooling in pre-primary education by practising their school readiness skills. However, there is a major variation in the skill levels of pupils in the first grade of education. The concept of the readiness of the school has emerged alongside children’s individual school readiness skills, describing the school’s readiness to take in learners with varying levels of skills. As a result, the focus of the examination of children’s school readiness has increasingly shifted from the development of schools and education. This study explores the views of pre-primary and primary education teachers on the ideal and actual school readiness of children and the readiness of today’s schools to receive learners whose skill levels vary. The research data included three group interviews participated by nine teachers in total. The groups included pre-primary school teachers, class teachers and special needs teachers with experience in teaching pupils in pre-primary and primary education. The data were collected using the semi-structured theme interview method carried out via a remote connection in December 2022. The obtained data were analysed using data-driven content analysis. The school readiness skills that the teachers perceived as ideal were concerned with basic everyday skills, academic skills, fine motor skills, working skills and socio-emotional skills. Especially basic everyday skills, working skills and socio-emotional skills were considered particularly important school readiness skills. Above all, the interviewees wished that children would be able to act in a large group, taking other children into consideration. The teachers noted that there has been progress in children’s academic readiness recently, whereas there are shortcomings in their working skills and socio-emotional skills. The teachers had a positive view of the school’s readiness to take in learners with different skill levels, but they also considered the school’s resources insufficient. The current resources are inadequate to provide pupils with enough of the individual support that they need. Group sizes at schools should be made smaller and the number of adults should be higher. The teachers also considered alternative ways for starting school that would better serve the beginning of each pupil’s school path.
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(2016)The purpose of this thesis is to describe how the phenomena of agency and control occur in an action research study of school satisfaction. The main focus is on the description about agency and control given by pupils as they contemplated the satisfaction of transitioning to lower secondary school. Another area of interest is action research as a method that supports the agency of the pupils. A sixth grade from a village school that emphasizes the learnercentred pedagogy took part in the research in the spring of 2016. The action research consisted of four stages: introduction and conceptualization, data collection, analysis and individual reflection. In this thesis, the data consisted of a group discussion of the analysis stage and the pupils' individual reflection tests. Content analysis was used in analysing the discussion and texts of the pupils when examining what kinds of occurrences of agency and control could be detected. When finding out what kinds of initiatives of agency the pupils took in interactive situations, the analysis of interaction was used in analysing the group discussion with a focus on initiatives. In the conversation of the pupils, the most essential matters concerning control were the school rules and teachers who made sure that the rules were followed. Control was seen as a restriction to creativity but also as something that brought safety. The talk about breaking the rules together was an essential thought that reflected agency through opposition. Freedom and independence for studying as well as for transport was hoped for. The answers reflected the youth's need for independence and its meaning for each individual's school satisfaction. The initiatives varied and changed quickly in the interactive situation of the action research. For example, the pupils would take initiatives of supporting each other's ideas by repeating the same idea. However, in constructive initiatives they started to modify an idea presented by someone else. In group discussion, dividing and opposing initiatives took place, which occurred, for instance, by focusing too much on the details or rejecting another person's idea. There is a pedagogical contradiction in everyday school life. On the first hand, pupils should be guided to become independent agents but on the other hand, a safe school environment should be maintained for everyone. The purpose of this study was to bring this pedagogical paradox to the fore and to clarify in a concrete way what kind of agency and initiatives concerning it can occur in everyday life, and how all these matters are interwoven into the pupils' school satisfaction.
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