Slovenia Questionnaire

1. Did the visit on Turkey satisfy you? Our first in Turkey certainly satisfied us in all aspects. Even more, we are exited how powerful expirience this visit was in many views. We learned a lot about Turkish preschool sistem and programme, met wonderful people which all of them were very prepared for this project and hospitality. We were impressed by Izmir, it's size, number of citizens and culture monuments. We were exited about the food, which is very delicious, varied and colourful. Yes, we are glad, that we started with the project. All expectations were realized, and for all questions about project we found the answers. It was great to met new people from diferent countries, and the school sistems in their countries.

2. What do you think of the organisation of time during the meeting? Organizing time in Turkey is a little bit different as in Slovenia. We think that the schedule was too tight and that we spent too much time on waiting, which resulted in an absolute lack of free time. Everything is going slower. We think that the spending time should be more organized. Turkish people were very nice and hospitable. It was nice, that we spend morning times in the kindergarten. We have tight schedule, during all days. It would be great to spend more time in the kindergarten, with the kids.

3. How do you evaluate the effectivity of work during the meeting? Our opinion is, that we were quite effective. A lot of work tasks were done, acttually almost all we agreed by phone, skype or e-mail before meeting. It was effective, we knew a lot about Turkey and Poland system in kindergarten. And we also talk about some questions about Project Smileys. The most productive and interesting were meetings in kindergarten. Where we first had a short meeting or presentation in the lower hall, then we continued with activities in the classroom, surrounded by children. We usually ended those days with an informal and spontaneous evaluation (with a coffee and snack).

4. What did / didnt you like about the system of work of the kindergarden ? The school children are polite and obidiently and that surprised us. I was impresed how careful and participated are children's parents, especially mothers. It's a pasive role of children, which are waiting, listening and watching a lot and a little less participate in activities. All activities are prepared by teachers, which excludes children.

In the kindergaten they are having very (primary)school education system, with schedules its interesting, that its not full day care but like weI already say school sistem. We liked the external system regulation of pre- school in Turkey (organization of time 5 hours per day, two- shift kindergarden , staff organization- teachers/ assistant, education of preschool teachers). We dont like the fact they dont have national curricul. We were also very surprised when we saw children quietly sitting by their tables, waiting for further instructions of their teacher.

5. What activities did you like most in the kindergarten?

We like activities, where the kids were active, like dancing and singing. Dancing performance and fashion show from waste material was my favourite. Activities that we liked the most was when all countries represented their traditional games, dances and songs. Children were very relaxed and were happy to include in the foreign-language activities.

6. What would you like to introduce in your place of work? We would like to introduce our way of working with children and individual approach to them. We are looking forward to take a tour to our 9 units, where teachers and children will prepare different activities from different areas of preschool programme. We would like to introduce a different preschool system. The most interesting in Slovenia is that 1 year old babies are already included in kindergarten. Well introduce physical activity. We think we were all very surprised by the amount of civic education. Even the youngest children are involved in this activities (basic learning on important cultural and historical persons, national songs, dances). We would definitely introduce this (at least a small part of it) in my workspace.

7. Do you have any comment about the last meeting and suggestion about the future meetings?

We think our meetings should be a little shorter from the point of view to less money spent, more efficient work and not so hard work for host. It was great, like we already say, but it was also hard being active all day long.

We think that the whole visit was well planned. We liked it because we had enough time to meet new, foreign colleagues. For further trips I would recommend slightly shorter trips (maybe 3 days).

For Slovenian partner: Romana, Helena, Katarina, Tina, Ksenija, Alenka.