Parents´ Deciding About Postponement Of The Compulsory School Attendance Of Their Children: Choosing The School Well Being
Author(s):
Jana Cerna (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2017
Network:
Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Format:
Paper

Session Information

ERG SES E 10, Didactics and Education

Paper Session

Time:
2017-08-21
15:30-17:00
Room:
W3.17
Chair:
Agnieszka Bates

Contribution

The institute of school postponement is widely spread in Europe. But the situation in the Czech Republic is specific, since it is used on a rather mass scale (22 % in the Czech Republic , 8 % of pupils in Germany and Slovakia, 5 % in Belgium, 4% in Austria).

The obligatory education in the Czech Republic starts at the age of six, when children begin elementary school, grade 1 (ISCED 1). (New law requires attendance of the kinder garden /ISCED 0/since the age of 5, the law is implemented since 2017/2018). School year starts in September and the inscription to a school is around April. During this inscription, schools mostly require some knowledge, as colours, shapes, counting, writing child’s name or story telling. Children who seems not prepared for school might be recommended for the postponement of the compulsory school attendance. Recommendation of the psychologist must be proved, but the final decision is up to parents.

The proportion of children with postponement of the compulsory school attendance in the Czech Republic is considerably high, about 20% in 2015. For this high number, it is very interesting to know more about motivations of parents choosing a postponement of the compulsory school attendance for their kids. Also we should know, whether children receive enough of stimulus during the year of postponement (mostly spent in a kinder garden repeating the last year or in an elementary school, grade 0, which is a relatively  new concept in The Czech Republic). In the case of the postponement due to a special need, such as a speech defects or immaturity, do we provide a special care to compensate it? And finally, it is not a school that should be prepared to accept a child on its actual level, instead of screen children ´s capacities to enter grade 1 of elementary education?

In my research I have focused on these research questions:

Deciding about postponement

When did parents start to think about postponement?

Who gave them the first stimulus for thinking about the postponement?

Who was involved in the deciding?

Did they consider the impact for the future?

How important this decision was for the family, child included?

Role of authorities during deciding

How important have been the opinion of psychologist, kinder garden teacher, school teacher?

Role of kinder garden and the image of school for my children

Could kinder garden ”prepare better” a child for schooling?

How should the ideal school look like, so their child could enter grade 1 with no hesitation of postponement?

Should we speak about child prepared for school? Could school possibly expect every single child?

Are postponements necessary in our school system? Is the number adequate?

Evaluation of decision

How do they judge the decision of postponement with a one year perspective?

            Contribution to understand motives of parents’ decision making about the postponement can help us to improve the system and take some measure as a more specialised kinder garden care, easier transfer to a primary school or lower the numbers of school postponements.

                  Also we should know who are the parents deciding about the school postponement and what are their exact reasons (that can be uncovered only qualitatively), so we do limit the postponements as a way to advantage one child among the others.

 

Method

The research design is based on mixture of quantitative and qualitative methodology. The research is based on 7 semi-structured interviews, whose respondents have been found thanks to CLoSE (Czech longitudinal Study in Education). CLoSE is a unique 7-year Czech research project (2012-2018) that undertakes a comprehensive research program in order to gain a better understanding of the key issues related to schooling, skill acquisition, and achievement. CLoSE is a quantitative research disposing among others data of respondents: parents of pre-school children in the kinder garden. These data consist of basic socio-demographic characteristics and specific responses about choosing selection of school, postponement, special intellect of a child, and many others. Personal case-study, researching reasons, determinants, factors, processes and experiences have been used as an approach for my qualitative semi-structures interviews. Research sample As my aim was to focus on children with school postponement, I choose parents from CLoSE research from Prague who have decided about school postponement for their kids. I have selected 8 parents out of 16 interested for my further research: personal meeting and interview. (Up to decision and possibilities of parents, mother of father participated on the research.) Thanks to CLoSE data I also dispose a score of child (measured as a sum of the mathematic test and visual-perception test), that can objectify parents decision for postponement as well as the psychologist´ s advise. Data collection The piloting research has been done before interviews with respondents and proved that questions in my semi-structured interview are comprehensible, as well as I am able to modify and personify questions to respondents. Questions in the interview have been semi-structured, modified according to results from CLoSE data and adapted to the actual situation of each respondent. Interviews have been realised in June and July 2015, regarding that children have spend the academic year 2014/2015 by their postponement (in the kinder garden or “grade 0”) and all of them planned to start Grade 1 in September 2015. Data analyses Segmentation of the text has been used for further open coding. During the coding I used a cognitive map for better understanding of logic of the process. Even if I have a research question I stay open to read new and surprising answers. I also used a peer-review as a consultation to make sure that my coding system is inter-subjectively valid and so my coding is not biased.

Expected Outcomes

My main findings are as follows. Children from my sample are born from May till August, which means they tend to be between the youngest in the class. As parents are scared of their position of the youngest (smallest) one, they choose the postponement to ensure their wellbeing. This fact is more highlighted by the high number of postponements, so not only parents compared their July-born child with the population of six years old children, but they include in their decision making the postponement of children, which makes and another “inflation of postponements”. Also some parents have no doubt about disadvantage of the postponements for their child in the sense that it would become the oldest in the classroom. Parents usually spoke about insecurity of wellbeing of their kids in the school, among others expressed as new requirements in a school (comparing to the kinder garden) orientation of children in the school building, or also a shyness of their child potentiated with the late date of birth of the child or good communication with a teacher, To insure the wellbeing of their child parents prioritize to send their child to Grade zero in a school, proposing lower number of child in the classroom, lower expectation and so on. Other parents choose an alternative school and do not hesitate do wait a year (that a child spent in a postponement) because of the overhang of applicants. The overhang of applicant is one of the others reason, as a strong population year came to schools, the strategy of primaries school having more children that the capacity is to gave a postponement to children, even if this child prove high score in the test or during the school inscription

References

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Author Information

Jana Cerna (presenting / submitting)
Charles University in Prague
Institute for Research and Developement in Education
Prague

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