Less theory – more practice, a modern approach to education, more freedom and better support for teachers – these are some of the conclusions drawn from the summary of surveys for school staffs and consultations conducted by IBE PIB.
As January turned into February, the Educational Research Institute – National Research Institute collected opinions through online surveys and consultation meetings with the teaching community. The surveys and consultations focused on expectations regarding changes in the education system.
Consultations
Consultation meetings were conducted on the core curricula and expected changes for each subject:
- More than 700 meetings and other activities were held throughout Poland,
- More than 10,000 teachers took part in the consultations.
The consultations were conducted in cooperation with local education authorities, which proved to be a good way to reach large groups of teachers, regional coordinators and subject coordinators in each voivodeship.
The subject coordinators organized more than 700 consultation activities in the form of online and live meetings, telephone conversations and their own surveys. More than 10,000 teachers took part in the consultations.
After analysis, the results will be forwarded to the expert teams working on the proposed core curricula.
Surveys
Opinions were collected through online surveys that teachers could fill out on their own.
Responses were received from 23,852 persons, who were:
- preschool teachers (5,574),
- early education teachers (4,629), and
- primary school teachers of grades 4-8 (13,649).
Preschool education – what have we learned?
- One in five preschool teachers agree that the core curriculum contains the necessary content.
- Today’s core curriculum is a good starting point for supporting children in the development of their cognitive, social and personal competences.
- Changing the core curriculum alone is not enough for preschools to perform their work more effectively, including helping children better in developing their competences and building agency.
- Many other changes need to be made, primarily:
- reducing the number of children per group and increasing funding for facilities,
- updating the training offer for teachers and enriching training with practical guidelines and demonstration lessons,
- moving away from the widespread use of ready-made educational packages (fewer cards, more free play, space for creativity).
The issues raised in surveys and consultations
The expectations expressed by teachers will be presented as recommendations to the teams working on changes in the education system.
The main postulates are
- A smaller core curriculum (reducing the number of detailed content, especially in science and humanities subjects, with more practical skills in its place).
- More flexibility in the implementation of the core curriculum (ability to adapt lessons to the needs of students).
- More interdisciplinary projects (introduction of modular topics that can be implemented in different lessons).
- Development of critical and creative thinking (more content that develops analysis and argumentation).
- Learning through experience instead of rote learning (introduction of practical and experimental classes, more field trips).
- Greater autonomy for teachers (more freedom in the choice of teaching methods, tailoring assessment to individual needs).
- Better support for teachers (ready-made lesson plans, more training).
- Strengthening the skills of cooperation and caring for others (introducing compulsory group projects, more integration activities).