FACTORS DETERMINING THE DEVELOPMENT OF HEALTH COMPETENCES IN SCHOOLS OF GENERAL EDUCATION: EXPERIENCES OF PEDAGOGUES

Health enhancing and the reinforcement of healthy living are the priorities of the European Union's health policy. The World Health Organisation document for the European region "Health21: Health for All in the 21st Century" sets the following objectives: at least 95% of children must have an opportunity to attend a health promoting schools, to acquire better healthy lifestyle skills and an opportunity to regulate their health. Thus, the healthy and secure child becomes the priority of the educational system: the school endeavours to develop a health protection and promotion skill in pupils, encourage the need to lead a healthy lifestyle, to support and improve the health of every one of them.

The purpose of the research is to reveal, based on the experience the pedagogues, the factors which determine the development of health competences. Problematic questions of the study: What determines the quality of the development of health competences? What are the interferences to development of health skills? Qualitative research type was chosen for the study. In the study, the method of a semi-structured interview was used. 14 pedagogues participated in the study.

The study revealed that the pedagogues distinguish the following factors determining the quality of the development of health skills in pupils: the development of health competences at home (the attitude of parents towards healthy living, the realisation of healthy lifestyle in the family, the leading of a child towards a healthy lifestyle), the attention attached to the development of health skills at school (the attitude of a pedagogue towards a healthy lifestyle, a pedagogue as an example of a healthy lifestyle, the implementation of the programmes aimed at the promotion of healthy living, the attention of a healthcare specialist to the development of health competences in pupils, the attention of specialists to promote healthy living and emotional health in the child, a favourable attitude of the school administration and its support), health promotion competences of a pedagogue (knowledge related to the content of health promotion, the abilities of a pedagogue to integrate the knowledge of healthy living into after-school and extracurricular activities, the ability of a pedagogue to develop healthy living competences in pupils in a daily life activity, professional development in the area of health promotion), cooperation when developing health competences in children (the cooperation between pedagogues and parents, cooperation between pedagogues and their cooperation with other specialists).

The research revealed the essential interferences of the development health competences which are related to: domestic environment (there are no conditions to implement the acquired knowledge on healthy living at home, the examples of an unhealthy lifestyle of parents, inattention regarding the development of healthy living skills in the child, financial-economic condition of a family) and a school environment (the development of health competences is not a priority at school, the lack of positive examples, the coordination of the development of health competences and health promotion competences in pedagogues).