Developing social skills in the first grade of primary school

Social skills enable people to behave in the social space as they are expected to, to have satisfactory social relationships, to learn, to communicate with others and to solve conflicts. Mastering social skills enables individuals to effectively meet their own social needs, without harming others. People learn the appropriate management of social skills in lifelong socialization, because it lasts from our first breath to the very last exhalation. In the theoretical part of the thesis I am presenting, how the socialization is happening, what the social skills are, ways of exercising and developing these skills at school and the relationship between the academic achievement and social skills management. I would like to present how social skills are included in the curriculum of the subject SPO (where children are learning about the environment and society) and which objectives and which fundamental skills are associated with developing social skills. The reason I decided to write the thesis in the field of developing social skills is because I was inspired by the example of a good practice from the succursal school Šentjakob ob Savi, which I have described briefly in this thesis. Due to the continuation and improvement of the mentioned project, we created a set of workshops about conflict management. In the empirical part I am presenting the set of 16 workshops of the proper conflict resolution for the first and second triad, with the aim to teach children new skills of cooperation, acceptance of different opinions, developing communication skills and conflict resolution in a constructive way. I did a detailed analysis of the performed lessons and I tried to adapt them to the first grade pupils. I made a few additional or repaird worksheets for the individual activities and I did some adjustments of certain games and activities. I followed the development of the capacity of pupils. evaluating the purpose and course of the action and the description of their own well-being from these activities. I also conducted sociometric test (before the implementation of a set of workshops and after performed activities) and present the social situation of students in the classroom. I wanted to explore find out if the sociometric testing of the social skills is affecting the structure of the clasroom. I found out that it is very important to observe the interactions between the children in the classroom every year, even more than once a year. That is the only way for a teacher to evaluate their positions in the classroom and the connections between themselves. Social skills are very important factor in the academic achievement, because the grades not only reflect the knowledge but also the pupils' behavior and their expectations. Learning social skills can change the values and behavior of the pupils. And that results to higher levels of learning as we change the understandings, evaluations and judgments. With good social skills we can easily build different friendships and create strong ties with each other. The social skills are also the base for relaxed relationships, good communication and a successful career and therefore the most important factor for a successful and happy life