The lack of time when working with preschoolers is a massive problem that not only places a burden on educational professionals, but also has a significant negative impact on the quality of the educational process in preschool work (Sheridan, 2007; Ugaste & Niikko, 2015) and on parental work, which is important for children's development (Ma et al., 2016). And that’s an international issue.

International evidence shows that individual support for children's educational processes in inclusive settings plays a key role in determining their long-term school success and the course of their educational biography (Petriwskyj et al., 2014; Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2008). At the same time, studies show that educational professionals do not always succeed to the necessary extent in responding to each individual child, in grasping his or her individual learning situation in the various domains, in picking up on his or her educational aspirations and in even being able to perceive as such educational opportunities that are important for the individual child (Hasselhorn & Kuger, 2014; Smidt, 2012). This is in clear contradiction to the inclusive understanding of education as well as to the rights of the child to the development of their personal potential and the promotion of their individual education as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In the course of the educational disadvantages of children, which have once again drastically increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Kuger et al., 2022; Quenzer-Alfred et al., 2022), and the massive challenges in educational work with children with refugee experiences, this is an unacceptable current state. 

So far, various causes for the insufficient individual support of children in preschool have been identified: These include, on the one hand, low domain-specific knowledge, inadequate support attitudes and a lack of diagnostic skills (Kluczniok et al., 2011; Vaz et al., 2015). Only recently has the lack of time and staff been discussed in this context, which, according to the latest findings, leads to a de-professionalisation of the field as well as to a negative influence on the pedagogical process quality. Recent studies show that a lack of time leads to a massive restriction of the ability to act, a chronic overload and thus to a successive limitation of the options for action (Rosenkranz, Schütz & Klusemann, 2023). In this respect, there is a desideratum with regard to the theoretical modelling and empirical testing of a competence model for the activation of domain-specific professional and methodological competences of inclusive educational support in settings where time is scarce.

Two research questions will be answered:

1) What influence does the lack of time have on the competent use of observation and documentation procedures in inclusive educational work in preschool to record the learning situation and the concrete support of the individual child derived from this by educational professionals (Study A)?

2) What requirements for competence development and professionalisation in dealing with time constraints can be derived from best practice as well as worst case examples of inclusive educational work in the use of observation and documentation procedures and the support of children (Study B)?

From the findings of the empirical examination of both research questions, the components of the competence model for the activation of domain-specific subject and methodological competences of inclusive education work are derived and their interdependencies are described.

The questions are answered by triangulating the results from two explorative studies (A and B), which are realised within the framework of two different third-party funded projects (multi-method design). Study A In the ProfiKitadigitale project, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the State of Brandenburg (Germany) in 2022, an observation and documentation system developed at the University of Leipzig was evaluated and tested for the inclusive process support of the transition from kindergarten to school. In this context, N = 110 professionals were interviewed in an explorative design by means of a standardised questionnaire with closed and open questions on the extent to which the observation and documentation system developed contributes to professionalisation for inclusive educational work. In advance, indicators for professionalisation in inclusive educational work were deductively derived on the basis of the state of research (skills for assessing the child's competences, time required, use for structuring pedagogical work, challenges in pedagogical work) and concrete questions were derived from these. The answers of the respondents were transferred into the statistical programme SPSS. The closed questions were analysed descriptively and inferentially using frequency distributions. The open answers were transferred into the software MAXQDA 2022 and analysed with the evaluative qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz & Rädiker, 2022). Study B In the BMBF-funded inter-university collaborative project "Individual Learning Development Analysis of Basic Competencies in the Inclusive Transition Kindergarten - School" (ILEA-Basis-T), a parallel study on the effectiveness of cooperative transfer is integrated. Within the framework of this study, semi-structured interviews are conducted with N = 12 professionals in order to record their experiences in inclusive educational work with children under precarious conditions. The focus of the study is the derivation of approaches to reconcile individual diagnostics and support with the existing time constraints as well as the derivation of personal, professional and methodological competence facets for empowerment for this reconciliation. The interviews will be transcribed with the software Amberscript according to semantic-content transcription rules (Dresing & Pehl, 2018) and analysed with MAXQDA 2022 according to the method of content structuring qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz & Rädiker, 2022).

The results from study A outline that the staff interviewed show (f.e.) - great willingness to take on additional burdens through the use of observation and documentation procedures, - the differentiation of the facets of domain-specific competencies in observation and documentation procedures that are beneficial for children's success in school is experienced as a gain in professionalisation for the task field. But responses reveals contradictions in the answers: On the one hand, they confirm the potential of the very differentiated listing of the competence facets of the children to be assessed, which are relevant for the transition to school - for the further school success of the children, the design of cooperation with the receiving primary school and the children’s parents as well as for the structuring of individual pre-school education in the pedagogical work. On the other hand, the added value for the own professional work is massively questioned due to the bundling of time resources. Despite the demonstrable advantages and the repeatedly emphasised importance of documentation, there is a tendency to reject the use of documentation system. For this reason, there is a need to highlight best practice that show how professionals can deal with these challenges of lack of time (Study B - completion in June 2023). The research results and the competence model derived from them will be presented and discussed in the paper in terms of its significance for the reactivation of action skills in settings with a lack of time. Due to its direct reference to the performance in inclusive educational work in preschool, it can be transferred to educational work in different educational systems and is suitable to complement different primary qualifications of professionals, f.e. within training. This is expected to result in a gain in the professionalisation in inclusive education work at the international level.

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