The specifics of the professional stance of primary school teachers in the context of the New Ukrainian school requirements

Abstract

The article is devoted to the theoretical substantiation of the specifics of the professional stance of primary school teachers in the context of the requirements of the New Ukrainian School. The relevance of the study is determined by the systemic transformations of Ukrainian education, which encompass the content, methods and organisational forms of primary education and put forward fundamentally new requirements for the personal and value orientations of the teacher. It has been established that the NUS reform not only updates the teacher's methodological toolkit but also requires a profound reorientation of their inner stance – from an authoritarian- transmissive one to a humanistic, child-centred and partnership-based approach. On the basis of an analysis of regulatory documents, in particular the NUS Concept (2016) and the Professional Standard «Teacher of a General Secondary Education Institution» (2024), the value-based and competence-related requirements for the modern teacher have been characterised. It has been demonstrated that the competencies defined by the standard cannot be effectively realised outside the corresponding value stance of the teacher. Competencies and stance emerge as mutually conditioned phenomena: the stance provides the axiological foundation, while the competencies operationalise it in concrete pedagogical actions. The specific features of the pedagogical activity of primary school teachers that substantially determine the nature of their professional stance have been revealed: multidisciplinary and integrated instruction, the necessity of taking into account the psychological characteristics of primary school age, active partnership interaction with parents, and an orientation towards the formation of pupils' key competencies. It has been established that these features give rise to the need for an integrative, flexible and empathetic pedagogical stance. Contemporary challenges that require the transformation of the teacher's traditional stance have been identified: the implementation of inclusive education and the individualisation of learning, the digital transformation of the educational process, the demands of academic integrity, and the need to support emotional well-being and prevent burnout. New roles of the teacher enacted in the NUS context have been revealed: facilitator of the learning process, designer of a developmental educational environment, and equal partner of pupils in cognitive activity. It is concluded that the formation of the appropriate professional stance is one of the priority tasks of the pre-service training system for future primary school teachers and requires further scholarly investigation.