Kindergarten teacher professional development at work with special needs children

Vzgojitelji so v današnjem času postavljeni pred različne izzive. Za profesionalno ravnanje morajo imeti širok spekter znanj in spretnosti na več področjih. Poznati morajo otroke, njihove značilnosti in posebnosti, načine dela z otroki ter načine sodelovanja s starši, kolegi in družbeno skupnostjo, kar zahteva njihovo nenehno poklicno učenje. Svojevrstno spodbudo za vzgojiteljev profesionalni razvoj predstavlja tudi delo z otroki s posebnimi potrebami (v nadaljevanju otroci s PP). Vzgojitelji se z otroki s PP srečujejo skoraj vsako leto. Raziskovalni izsledki kažejo, da pedagoški delavci ocenjujejo, da je njihova usposobljenost za delo z otroki s PP nizka, nas pa zanima, v kolikšni meri velja to tudi za vzgojitelje. Naš namen je ugotoviti, kako vzgojitelji ocenjujejo lastno usposobljenost za delo s posameznimi skupinami otrok s PP, s kakšnimi težavami se srečujejo in kako jih razrešujejo, kje pridobivajo svoje kompetence, v kolikšni meri so se pripravljeni izobraževati na tem področju in kateri dejavniki imajo na to največji vpliv. Ugotovili smo, da so vzgojitelji v 73 % mnenja, da otrok s PP vpliva na njihovo delo v oddelku, kjer kot težavo navajajo pomanjkanje časa za ostale otroke v oddelku, odsotnost enega strokovnega delavca, ki mora svoj čas posvečati otroku s PP, več disciplinskih vložkov itd. Težave rešujejo s prilagajanjem dela, dodatnim časom in prilagoditvijo materialov, čeprav se nihče izmed 100 anketiranih vzgojiteljev za delo z otroki s PP ne čuti odlično usposobljenega. Več kot polovica (63 %) jih je mnenja, da so za delo z otroki s PP srednje usposobljeni, zato so se za svojo profesionalno rast na področju dela z otroki s PP pripravljeni tudi dodatno strokovno izpopolnjevati (teh je 84 %). Med temi pa je 82 % takšnih, ki se tudi aktivno vključujejo v različne oblike izobraževanj. Motivi za izbiro izobraževanj so različni, med najpogostejše sodita zanimive vsebine in želja po boljšem poznavanju področij, kjer jim primanjkuje znanj.Preschool teachers are today faced with various challenges. They need to have a wide range of skills in many areas, so they have to know children, their characteristics and features, ways of working with children, and ways of working with parents, colleagues and the community, which requires their continuous professional learning. Working with children with special needs (hereinafter referred to as children with SN) is also a unique incentive for preschool teachers’ professional development because they work with SN children almost every year. Research findings show that pedagogical workers estimate that their ability to work with children with SN is low, and we are interested in the extent to which this applies to preschool teachers. Our intention is to find out how preschool teachers assess their own ability to work with individual groups of children with SN, what problems they are facing and how they are solving them, where do they gain their competences, how much they are prepared to educate in this field and what are the factors that have the greatest effect. We have found that 73 % of preschool teachers believe that a child with a SN affects their work in a class and the main problems they have pointed out are the lack of time for other children in the group, the absence of another professional worker who works only with a child with SN, more disciplinary input, etc. Those problems are solved by adjusting their work, additional time, and adapting the materials, although none of the 100 surveyed preschool teachers feel they are well trained to work with children with SN. More than half of them (63 %) believe that they are medium-skilled in working with children with SN, and they are also prepared to improve their professional development in the field of work with children with SN (84 % of them) although 82 % of them are already actively involved in various forms of education. The motifs for choosing education are different, among the most common are interesting topics and the desire to improve their knowledge in certain areas