The Master thesis "Procedures of RWCT programme in the teaching of Czech language and literature at primary school" discusses the use of critical thinking techniques in the Czech language classes for fifth graders. My goal is to explore what options are used as the RWCT programme methods in the Czech language classes at primary school. One of the key objectives is to build a comprehensive material for teaching the Czech language in the fifth grade of primary school. This is based on critical thinking techniques thanks to which pupils not only study the new curriculum but also develop their reading literacy. The anthology demonstrates the applicability of critical thinking techniques in classes with specific examples. On the basis of reflections, I assess the options whitch the RWCT programme gives to the teaching of the Czech language in the fifth grade of primary school. Keywords A teacher at primary school, contemporary conception of teaching, Framework Educational Programme for primary education, RWCT programme, critical thinking, E - U - R model, critical thinking techniques, Czech language and literature.

Thesis (M. Tech. Dept. of Hospitality, Tourism and PR Management)--Vaal University of Technology, 2009. / Background: Approximately 45% of South Africans are overweight, including 20% of children under six years of age. Snack foods are now targeted in the food industry, globally, as an obesity prevention initiative, focusing on children to ensure the adoption of a healthy lifestyle from an early age. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the nutritional status and snack consumption patterns of children (n=290) 9 to 13 years old in the Vaal Region at two purposively selected primary schools in order to develop a healthy snack food item that will address obesity in children from a very young age. Methods: A baseline survey included a pre-tested questionnaire, administered by trained fieldworkers to determine snack food consumption patterns. Anthropometric measurements included weight and height. A snack food item was developed to meet certain criteria identified from the literature and baseline survey. The methods included: snack food development and preparation, chemical analyses to determine actual content, microbiological tests to determine shelf life and sensory analyses to determine acceptability. Study design: Cross-sectional analytical study. Data analyses: Data of the questionnnaires were captured and analysed for descriptive statistics (frequencies, means and standard deviations). The anthropometric data were captured and analysed using the World Health Organisation (WHO) standards for 2007. Results: The results showed that the children in the sample knew the meaning of healthy snacks, although the majority (66.8%) consumed unhealthy snacks, especially from school tuck shops. The top ten snack foods most commonly consumed daily were: coffee (48.3%), tea (46.1%), crispy chips (39.1%), fruit juice (38.0%), chicken (35.1%), fried potato chips (33.6%), carbonated drinks (26.9%), biscuits (26.2%), toffees (26.2%) and yoghurt (25.8%). The majority (56.8%) of the respondents indicated that they receive between R2 and R5 per week for tuck shop money, besides their monthly pocket money (64.6%). Most of the respondents (45.4%) spend their pocket money on snack food items and these are mainly consumed while watching television (36.9%) and when bored (29.5%). The anthropometric results indicated that 11.7% of the group were underweight, 12.1% of the group were stunted; in addition 20% were at risk of underweight, and 23.4% at risk of being stunted. A significantly higher percentage of girls (16.81) were stunted compared with the boys (5.0%). Also 7.6% of the group were overweight. More girls were overweight compared with boys. A snack food item was developed to address obesity in this region. The criteria met were that it was affordable, at cost of R0.55 per 30g portion, was low in fat and had high-density nutritional value, with at least 20% of the DRI for protein and iron, had a shelf life of 28 days and was generally acceptable to the majority of the respondents. Conclusion and recommendations: This study showed that obesity is becoming a problem amongst children in the Vaal Region. Although primary school children knew healthy snack foods, their behaviour indicated a large consumption of unhealthy snack foods. A low-fat, low-energy, low-cost and acceptable snack food item was successfully developed to address the obesity problem in the region. Further research is recommended where this snack food item is implemented in an intervention study to measure its impact on the nutritional status of obese primary school children. / National Research Foundation

Thesis (M. Tech. (Food Service Management, Dept. of Hospitality and Tourism))--Vaal Univrsity of Technology. / Inadequate food intake and unhygienic practices are usually associated with poor nutrition practices. Malnutrition stems from poor quality and quantity of foods, but is also contributed to by factors of inadequate maternal and child health care, lack of education and information and insufficient health services. The first phase of this study was to assess the nutritional status and nutritional knowledge of primary school children within a peri-urban community, through the implementation of a situational analysis. Validated 24-hour (hr) recall, food frequency (FFQ), nutrition knowledge and health questionnaires were used to conduct the situational analysis of this community. Parents (n=52) representative of 400 (13.0 percent) children voluntarily agreed to participate and 45 children completed the baseline survey. Results indicated a community faced with poverty as unemployment (60.9 percent) was high, education levels amongst the parents ranging between primary (33.3 percent) and secondary school (54.9 percent). The dietary patterns of the children revealed a carbohydrate-based diet with very few (n=2) consuming a variety of fruit and vegetables. Some nutrition knowledge amongst the children was evident, with a mean 60.2 percent in correct answers for the true/false questions. The children within the community were at risk of becoming stunted, with small numbers having deficiencies in iron. Therefore, it was decided to implement a nutrition education programme (NEP) in the second phase of the study to address malnutrition amongst primary school children. The objectives of the second phase were 1) to implement a NEP amongst the primary school children to assess the impact on nutrition knowledge and dietary practice, and 2) to determine the retention of knowledge after nine months and whether any correlation occurred between knowledge and dietary practices. The school environment was chosen to ensure attendance and create a suitable learning environment to which the children were already accustomed. Two groups, namely experimental (n=82) and control (n=91), were assigned for this study. The control group received no form of nutrition education during the intervention period. The experimental group received nine 45 minute lessons over a period of nine weeks. The nutrition education tools (NETs) were made up of a text and activity book, supplemented by a card and board game. Pre- and post-nutrition intervention knowledge and 24-hr recall questionnaires were completed to assess differences in nutrition knowledge and dietary practices between the two groups. The intervention made a significant impact on the nutrition knowledge of the experimental group, with a 13 percent improvement between pre and post results. Topics which required more emphasis included the importance of variety in the diet, the functions and sources of certain nutrients, and the classification of certain food groups and the daily serving requirements. In the long-term evaluation, nutrition knowledge was retained and related to topics of the inclusion of milk and fat on a daily basis, the serving size of starch, dairy products and fruit and vegetables, and the classification of low-fat snack items. Retention of knowledge was poor for the source of vitamin C. A few changes were made in the dietary choices of the children after the intervention, with the inclusion of more carbohydrates and one fruit. During the long-term evaluation, the children included more protein sources, but carbohydrates remained dominant within the Top 20 list. The energy distribution in the long term changed towards more energy being supplied from protein (15.6 percent) and fat (34.4 percent), compared with post results of 13.7 and 25.8 percent respectively. The multivariate analysis revealed a significant correlation between the protein intake of the Top 20 list and the question relating to the number of eggs (p=0.00) to be consumed daily, as well as the link between vitamin C (p=0.00) and fruit and vegetable intake. A limitation is that a small number of children (n=27) could not complete the post test, with another 34 children not present to complete the long-term evaluation. The children had very little control of the dietary patterns as their mothers were primarily responsible for food procurement, preparation and feeding. A recommendation is to commence the intervention in the beginning of the year and to consider a co-ordinated approach with parents to encourage dietary changes. / Vaal University of Technology and SANPAD

In Swedish primary school, the subjects geography, history, social studies or citizenship education and religion are integrated and known as one school subject called civic orientation. Through history, the civic orientation is characterized as a subject with a strong role to bring up a specific form of citizen. In civic orientation, there is mandatory content which the teacher must relate to. The mandatory content is based on certain views of children’s abilities and needs and thus sets the framework which either enables or limits the children. But the teacher also has the freedom to add content based on his/her own personal view of children’s needs and interests, and at the same time the curriculum also leaves room for interpretations. The purpose of this study is to analyze how the child in primary school is described, or what representations of the child are dominating in the civic orientation curricula. Furthermore, the aim of this study is to compare these representations to what three different teachers express when they motivate their didactic choices in civic orientation. The purpose of the comparison is to see whether the teachers are maintaining or questioning these representations of the child when they relate to the content expressed in the civic orientation curricula. The result shows that the content of the curricula is based on ideas that the child is socially and cognitively immature and therefore in need of simplification and protection. The teachers contribute to both questioning and maintaining these ideas, but their statements also reflect structural conditions of the school.

Bakgrund: Den psykiska ohälsan ökar bland elever i Sverige. Psykisk ohälsa hos barn och ungdomar kan få livslånga negativa konsekvenser. Skolprestationer, betyg och närvaro påverkas negativt liksom självkänsla och sociala relationer. Elevhälsan bedömer psykisk ohälsa bland elever som den största utmaningen i deras arbete. Skolsköterskor har en unik position i att kunna identifiera och förebygga psykisk ohälsa hos elever. Samtidigt som psykisk ohälsa ökar i skolan finns det relativt lite forskning om skolsköterskors roll i arbetet med elevers psykiska ohälsa.  Motiv: Denna studie avser att bidra med en djupare förståelse för skolsköterskors arbete med elever med psykisk ohälsa samt kunskap om skolsköterskors arbetsmetoder, för att bättre upptäcka och hjälpa elever med psykisk ohälsa. Syfte: Syftet är att beskriva skolsköterskors erfarenheter av att upptäcka och möta elever med psykisk ohälsa i grundskolan. Metod: Semistrukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med nio skolsköterskor verksamma i norra Sverige. Kvalitativ innehållsanalys med induktiv ansats har använts. Resultat: Resultatet presenteras i två kategorier med tillhörande subkategorier. Kategorierna är Att upptäcka tecken på psykisk ohälsa och bemöta eleven samt Att vara central för stödet till eleven men ensam och otillräcklig i sin profession. Konklusion: Skolsköterskor har goda möjligheter att både upptäcka och skapa trygga och givande relationer till elever med psykisk ohälsa. Genom ett nära samarbete med skolans övriga yrkeskategorier och med elevers föräldrar kan skolsköterskan få en central och avgörande roll i arbetet med att upptäcka och hjälpa elever med psykisk ohälsa. Skolsköterskor upplever ensamhet och lider av brist på tid, stöd och det finns ett behov av utbildning. Dessa faktorer riskerar skolsköterskors möjligheter att ge god omvårdnad till elever med psykisk ohälsa. / Background: ​​Mental ill health is increasing among pupils in Sweden. Mental ill-health in children and adolescents can have lifelong negative consequences. School performance, grades and attendance can be affected negative as are self-esteem and social relationships. Student health considers mental ill health among students to be the biggest challenge in their work. The school nurse has a unique position in being able to identify and prevent mental ill health in students. While mental ill health is increasing in schools, there is relatively little research on the school nurse's role in working with students' mental ill health. Motive: This study aims to contribute with a deeper understanding of the school nurse's work with students with mental ill health and knowledge of the school nurse's working methods, to better detect and help students with mental ill health. Aim: The aim of this study is to describe the school nurse's experience of discovering and dealing with students with mental ill health in primary school. Methods: Qualitative content analysis with an inductive approach has been used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine school nurses active in northern Sweden Result: The results are presented in two categories with associated subcategories. The categories are To detect signs of mental illness and respond to the student and To be central to the support of the student but alone and inadequate in the profession. Conclusion: School nurses have good opportunities to discover and create safe and rewarding relationships with students with mental illness. Through close collaboration with the school's other professional categories and with students' parents, the school nurse can have a central and crucial role in the work of discovering and helping students with mental illness. School nurses experience loneliness and suffer from lack of time, support and there is a need for education. These factors risk school nurses' opportunities to provide good care for students with mental illness.

This thesis is focused on the popularity of biology topics among pupils sixth through ninth graders. The aim is to identify popular and less popular topics of biology, to verify the existence of a relationship between the popularity of the certain topic and an evaluation at school final report. Another aim is to also to determine whether gender or age has a statistically significant impact on the popularity of biology. At first, the thesis focuses on the system of curricular documents in the form of education programme (so called "RVP" and "ŠVP") for understanding the organization and content of teaching biology a primary school. At second, I have also focused on theoretical description of pupils' personality and its specifics at primary school which is crucial in order to understand their behaviour and characteristic attributes at their age. Furthermore, this thesis also explains the concepts of a subject popularity and pupils' motivation, then identifies and analyses existing domestic and foreign studies dealing with the same or similar topic. The popularity of individual topics of biology was investigate by means of a research tool in the form of a 5-level Likert type survey. The validity and reliability of the used research tool was verified. The research sample consists of 249 pupils from 6th...

Cette recherche concerne le développement professionnel des enseignants du premier degré. Elle vise à appréhender l’effet de la formation sur l’évolution de la professionnalité des enseignants, via les activités et les accompagnements disponibles dans leur environnement quotidien. Après avoir mis au jour les caractéristiques du processus de développement professionnel et le rôle joué par les différentes ressources du milieu professionnel – dont l’implication de l’inspecteur de circonscription –, nous avons utilisé la construction de savoirs comme indicateur de modification des composantes de la professionnalité de l’enseignant.Le corpus a été composé de questionnaires et d’entretiens. Dans la première partie du corpus, les questionnaires ont donné lieu à une approche quantitative ; celle-ci a été complétée par une approche qualitative. En effet, la seconde partie du corpus, constituée d’entretiens d’enseignants et d’inspecteurs de l’Éducation nationale, a permis des confrontations de points de vue de ces différents acteurs de l’enseignement et de la formation sur leurs interactions, afin d’identifier des variables susceptibles de favoriser le développement professionnel des enseignants. Cette analyse se fonde principalement sur le modèle d’analyse de l’activité de Goigoux (2007) et l’approche du développement professionnel de l’enseignant selon Jorro (2011). Nos résultats indiquent que l’enseignant fait évoluer les caractéristiques de sa professionnalité par la mobilisation systémique des ressources de son environnement, lesquelles sont sollicitées de façon inégale selon le contexte, et à des moments spécifiques, pour être mises en relation et entrer en synergie.Des caractéristiques particulières des différentes ressources peuvent favoriser le développement de nouvelles compétences professionnelles : la modification des conditions de travail, le développement de collectifs de travail entre enseignants du même niveau de classe, des modalités de formation adaptées aux attentes des enseignants, une relation inspecteur/enseignant explicite et bienveillante, et des modalités cohérentes directes de travail de l’inspecteur. / This research concerns professional development of primary school teachers. It aims at measuring the effects of training on teacher’s professionalism development via activity and support available in their daily environment. After exposing features of professional development and the role of various resources in the work environment – among district inspector involvement –, we used knowledge construction process as teacher’s professionalism indicator.The corpus was composed with questionnaires and interviews. In the first part of the corpus, questionnaires were given rise to quantitative analysis; this one was completed with a qualitative analysis. In fact, the second part of the corpus, constituted by inspector of education and teachers’ interviews, brought us to confront some points of view of this education and training actors on their interactions in order to identify variables in order further to favor professional development of teachers. This analysis relies on Goigoux scientific model of activity (2007) and on Jorro professional development of teachers (2011).    Our results show how teachers evolve their professionality by systemic mobilization of daily resources, which are requested in an uneven way according to the context, and at specific moments, to be got in touch and in synergy.  Particular features of the various resources could favor change in professionalism: modification of working conditions, development of working groups between same level of class teachers, training procedures adapted to teachers’ expectations, explicit and benevolent relationships between inspectors and teachers, and coherent and direct actions of the inspector.

As past research has found benefits of outdoor education and the current global society is facing a decline in access to beneficial natural spaces due to urbanization (Keniger, Gaston, Irvine & Fuller 2013), the aim of this master thesis research project was to explore the idea of an Outdoor Primary School, a way to provide children the access to beneficial natural spaces. In order to explore this idea, Professional Outdoor Educators (n= 61) were interviewed and asked to fill out a survey about the following aspects: outdoor and indoor spaces, learning activities, curriculum and challenges related to an Outdoor Primary School. There was a wide range of results showing that an Outdoor Primary School is a way to incorporate beneficial ways of learning, such as project-based learning, experience-based and practical learning, social learning, play and student-centered learning in formal schooling. Including learning content and activities that can aid children’s development such as food, animals and sustainability is also possible in an Outdoor Primary School as shown below. Furthermore, an Outdoor Primary School is an institution that can be equipped with beneficial learning environments, such as natural environments, a vast space, spaces for cooking, growing food and keeping animals, quiet zones, play zones and opportunities for creating, building and crafts. These results go in line with previous research about Outdoor Education and related fields, suggesting that an Outdoor Primary School both holds challenges but also is a possible model to bring together many beneficial ways of learning that are already being practiced today.

The purpose of this study is to examine problem solving in teaching materials. Problem solving should, according to Lgr 11, have a central role in the teaching of mathematics. In a teaching that is dominated by textbooks it is important that the textbook give students the possibility to continuously develop their problem solving skills. This study investigates the extent to which teaching material address problem solving and if our textbooks challenge students to perform rich problems. In order to fulfill this purpose, the textbooks have been analyzed based on Eva Taflin's model for defining problems and rich problems. The textbooks used in the study are textbooks from primary school, which continuously work with problem solving and are based on Lgr 11. The data collection method chosen was a quantitative content analysis. It showed that teaching materials more or less address problem solving. The study also shows that it is difficult for the teaching materials to fulfill certain requirements needed for a problem to be classified as a rich problem. / Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka problemlösning i läromedel. Problemlösning ska enligt Lgr 11 ha en central roll i matematikundervisningen. I en läromedelsdominerande undervisning är det viktigt att våra läromedel ger elever möjlighet att kontinuerligt utveckla sin problemlösningsförmåga. Denna studie undersöker i vilken omfattning läromedel behandlar problemlösning samt om våra läromedel utmanar elever att utföra rika problem. För att uppfylla syftet har läromedlen analyserat utifrån Eva Taflins modell för att definiera problem och rika problem. Läromedlen som används i studien är läromedel från årskurs 1–3 som uttrycker att de arbetar kontinuerligt med problemlösning och utifrån Lgr 11. Den valda datainsamlingsmetoden blev en kvantitativ innehållsanalys där det framgick att läromedel från Matematik eldorado, Favorit matematik samt Koll på matematik i olika utsträckning behandlar problemlösning. Studien visar även att det är svårt för läromedlen att uppfylla vissa krav som behövs för att det ska klassas som ett rikt problem.

Teachers play an important role in teaching English as a second language. Since many studies of students’ attitudes towards leaning English already exist this study aims to compensate the lack of studies examining teachers’ attitudes towards methods of teaching English as a foreign language. The main focus of the study is on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). The definition and effects of CLIL are presented and discussed as well as pedagogical implications about teaching English as a foreign language. Via an online survey questionnaire, this study examines the attitude towards CLIL of ninety-seven teachers in the Swedish primary school’s preschool class to grade three. Findings of this study implicate that teachers in general have a positive attitude towards a content integrated approach to teaching English as a foreign language. Finally, suggestions for future research are presented.