The thesis justifies the expediency to study professional training of future primary school teachers in the UK and the need to implement positive aspects of such training in the national system of teacher education in higher education institutions (HEIs). It systematizes the findings of Ukrainian and foreign researchers based on the following blocks: the problems of teacher education in HEIs in the context of European educational integration; theoretical and methodological principles of professional teacher training; some organizational and didactic aspects in learning of future primary school teachers; the use of innovative ideas of the foreign experience in teacher training.
The thesis reveals the impact of European education policy and European integration processes on the development of teacher education and training of future primary school teachers in the UK. It highlights the intensification of cross-border cooperation, academic and professional mobility of teachers; the expanding participation of the British teaching community in European educational projects; the implementation of large-scale theoretical and experimental research in the field of primary school didactic and methods of teaching individual subjects; the creation of transnational informational and educational space with the aim of using joint open educational resources to cultivate a culture of joint learning, creation, exchange, cooperation; the improvement of the educational process based on education democratization.
The thesis justifies the approaches (dialectical, synergetic, systemic, practice-oriented, acmeological, comparative, technological; hermeneutic, narrative, transdisciplinary), which are responsible for building the content, choosing forms, methods and technologies of learning of future primary school teachers in the UK experience. It finds that the development of teacher education and the improvement of professional training for future primary school teachers are especially influenced by the constructivism theory, the technology-integrated social constructivism concept; cognitivism; humanism with the person-oriented learning concept; the practice-oriented learning and research theory; the leadership and career development theory; the transdisciplinarity theory, the continuing education and lifelong learning concept; the school-based learning concept; the partnership-based approach concept; the research-based teacher education concept.
The thesis describes the regulatory, legal, organizational, content-related and technological features of professional training of future primary school teachers in the UK: the standardization of teacher education, the transdisciplinarity of training content, diverse reflective and practice-oriented training, research activities based on interdisciplinarity; the variability and contextuality of forms, methods and technologies of learning; the modularization and individualization of learning; the flexible and systemic cooperation with stakeholders, the connection between learning and active self-study and self-development; the active implementation of various models of subject-subject interaction based on cooperation and partnership; the transparent monitoring of identifying applicants’ intellectual capabilities and academic attainment; the satisfaction of students’ scientific and cognitive needs and interests; the creation of appropriate conditions for developing pedagogical leadership.
The thesis singles out the main forms of organizing practical training: pre-service practice and in-service practice. It indicates that self-study of future primary school teachers is characterized by a high level of responsibility, voluntariness, willingness to build one’s learning trajectory and diversification according to an academic degree, content and a type of a course, the place of performance. The most popular are school leadership programmes and additional certificates which ensure the continuity of professional growth, purposeful cognitive activity and accumulation of social experience. The thesis presents the results obtained from the comparative professional-pedagogical analysis of professional training of future primary school teachers in Ukrainian and UK universities, which was conducted to identify the similar and distinct trends based on certain criteria. The latter include the following: the legal framework, education management, funding, degrees, types of curricula, duration of the training, forms of learning, tuition fee, admission requirements, amount of study, independent work.
