Abstract:

School failure can be viewed from individual and systemic level. Systemic school failure arises when one of the elements or actors of the system fails in its efforts to provide equitable and inclusive education. At the individual level, school failure will be met by an individual if he or she does not overcome some educational situation, whether in terms of gained knowledge or acquired competence. The task of an educators is to create an environment in which all children will be able to experience school success. This status cannot be achieved without a constant monitoring of children, and subsequent adjustment of teaching methods and forms of work.

One of the valid monitoring tools can be the diagnosis of school maturity and readiness, which is usually in the competence of ordinary teachers. To the best of our knowledge, such prevention tool (such as diagnostics represents) is significantly neglected in international comparative studies.

Our goal is to describe and compare the available screening tools and methods used to “test” school maturity and readiness in four different countries.

As a research method, we chose an analytical method - document analysis - of a qualitative nature, which is an important technique for collecting information (Buriánek, 2018). For our purposes, we used written documents of mostly impersonal and official type (such as strategic educational documents etc.), for which it was possible to assess their quality information value (validity and reliability).

Through text analysis, we were particularly interested in the following indicators: (1) whether there is a national evaluation of children's school maturity and readiness during transition from kindergarten to primary school (2) whether there is a uniform evaluation tool, and if so, which areas it maps, and on what principle it “works”, and (3) whose competence it is to use it.

The presented results show that all countries try to address the issue of school maturity and readiness, but do not set a unified national concept. There is a lack of setting up a unified diagnostic tool and training of teachers in this area. Publicly available screening tools and commercial products can be found on every examined market. Although the products differ slightly (for example in the selection of test areas), they all reflect the educational policy and strategic documents of a country.

The authors of this contribution are in the process of examining other European and non-European countries and are preparing a monograph in which readers will be able to look more deeply into the practices of all examined countries.

Authors believe that adequate tools for assessing, or screening school maturity and readiness can help to detect not only children with special educational needs but can also be a valuable mentor for teachers and parents in helping develop competencies of their children, enabling them to experience school success from the very beginning of their institutional educational journey. This may lead to a situation in which not only children will be preparing for school, but also schools will prepare for their children.

Keywords:

Pedagogical diagnostics, preschool child, school maturity, school readiness, deferral.