Achieving knowledge standards in social science topics in the first class of the primary school

A different way of teaching in primary school, a different way of life, in particular a better and faster access to information and daily use of information and communication technologies, are more likely reasons that some children before entering the school age receive more experience to develop concepts including those that are part of the knowledge standards of the lessons. We decided to check, if and how much knowledge standards for Environment Education, students have already gained by the end of the first year’s class. In the theoretical part of the master thesis we have written about knowledge, namely on the types of knowledge, skill standards, curriculum for Environment Education, the revised Bloom's taxonomy and characteristics and the development of concepts in the 6- and 7-year-old children. In the empirical part we used qualitative research approach, descriptive statistics and causal non-experimental method. Social standards of knowledge for Environment Education for Space, Self, Community and Relations were first classified into 4 types and 6 levels of knowledge according to the revised Bloom's taxonomy. We found that most of the standards of knowledge we add to the factual knowledge and in the lower levels of knowledge, such as remember, understanding and apply. Out of the 32 standards of knowledge, we rank 20 in factual knowledge and 16 in the lowest level, namely remember. The main objective of our research was to determine which standards of knowledge in social studies, for the first educational period, have students at the end of the first class already achieved. Data was collected at the end of the school year in the first class of rural primary school in central Slovenia by testing the oral examination skills of 40 students, 22 boys and 18 girls. We examined 27 in total out of 32 standards of knowledge. The answers were qualitatively analyzed and evaluated. Acquired results were interpreted descriptively. Opinion on the results of one of the teachers was obtained by interview. We found that most of the students already achieve the standards of knowledge in all four sets of some standards for knowledge in each set. The most successful students have achieved or partially achieved all 27 standards of knowledge, the least successful student has achieved or partially achieved 8 out of 27 standards of knowledge. Between boys and girls, there is a difference in standards of knowledge achieved by boys, on average, reaching 20, however girls achieved 18 standards of knowledge. Boys were more successful. Most knowledge standards students achieved were in part Self, the least knowledge was achieved in the context of Relations. All students have reached the standard of knowledge by which they would know and distinguish between the basic values of money, only 13 students heard for the European Union – the least amount of students has achieved this standard of knowledge