9.4. Conclusions

Education means we bring up human beings. By giving a child time to develop, by respecting pre-school age as a significant period, we aid a child to develop into a harmonious personality. Resources have been given to teachers’ education and developing of day care, not so much to children’s early education. Our choices have been verified by school success tests among older pupils, consequently Finland should not copy other European countries when developing our pre-school. How to exploit more than today the expertise of leaders of day care centres, pre-school teachers at schools and social sector, this is a challenge for administration of pre-schools, particularly because administrative directors themselves usually possess no education in the field of pre-school or early education. Decision-making should also consider local circumstances.

Children need more and more social skills in the future. Both administrators, teachers and parents gave a lot of value to the teaching of manners and good behaviour. A play group helps a child to attain a higher level of generalization and reach the skill to put aside his self and his singularity. Children expressed the wish to stay and play freely outside. Finnish teachers, more than their Belgian colleagues, conscientiously make children exercise, for instance, and this seems a good practice. Early development of motor coordination correlates strongly with the development of cognitive competence and social skills. Methods requiring action suit all children, particularly boys, whose thinking can be touched and intensified with physical activities as they have act hunger. Learning by doing has the benefit that a child is not forced to too early abstract reasoning, he is under no obligation.The significance of the physical environment could be seen more clearly in evaluation. We do not appreciate enough nature and natural playgrounds. Even if a child’s care after a school day is not generally regarded as part of his school life, this opportunity should be developed in order not to split up his day too much. Then he would not have to move to a central school for reasons that force him to go there because there is day care available for the afternoon. A child’s best pre-school is located in his own village. This would enable him to get acquainted with his future school.

A child is not a static sum total of his talent profiles, but his competence develops in active relations with his environment, besides we can never precisely foresee the outcome. The social and cultural environment crucially control this process. We should encourage close cooperation between the child’s teacher, special education teacher and parents to support any child with learning difficulties. Supportive services should be available at the child’s own pre-school as much as possible, be it a small school or a big one or a day care centre.

We can never overestimate the significance of a good atmosphere and communication in pre-school education. A child’s experiences at school affect his later academic success. Children themselves lay emphasis on having a friend. So adjoining tests of cognitive skills there should be a follow-up of relationships. So again, acquiring communicative skills through play seem meaningful as one area of contents in pre-school teaching.

Providing pre-school education for children in small schools repeats the history of providing elementary education in the country in the 19^th century: in this respect children were luckier in urban areas. A tendency to create equal and just opportunities to everyone characterizes Finnish educational policy. All six-year-olds are entitled to get pre-school education. Parents appreciate free transport as a means to create regional equality. We should clearly recognize the factors of our identity: it is a big country with a small population also in pedagogy. The historical norm of a small school, a combined class, is here to stay. Therefore, teaching combined classes and multi-age groups requires further study and development.

Based on these results, I come to the conclusion that the quality model is valid for evaluation of the quality of pre-school education. By using it we can get information of development underway: planning education, guiding learning processes, improving physical environment and learning atmosphere. The quality direction model may have a larger use in evaluating mass services within a municipality, and this model can facilitate the change of a public organization to the direction of a service culture. Service culture in this research is that the voices of children and their parents have been listened to.

Teachers need further training, particularly in special pedagogy, communication practices and cooperation with parents. School administration should provide more resources and time for this cooperation, which deserves another research, perhaps focused on activities.

The present research strenghtened my idea of the multiplicity of providing pre-school education. Using the evaluation model in case studies of municipalities, interviews of different groups and a follow-up study after pre-school education has been established offer interesting opportunities for further studies. The research advanced from a history of education to education in small schools in a funnel-shaped form. This funnel could now be transformed into an hourglass, in other words what suits small schools might suit all children in pre-school education. A child may be forgotten in the buzz and hum of adults’ interests and controversies. We can get remarkable information from children and research of their ideas should be enhanced. After all, it is their school.