In Finland early childhood education and care is voluntary for children age 0-6 years. Pre-primary education for 6 year old children is compulsory as well basic education for children age 7-16 years. At the moment in Tampere we have 2115 pre-primary students. In Tampere all our pre-primarystudents are studying in the schools. Head of the Kindergarden is responsible of pre-primaryeducation in his/hers area. This means that some Kindergarden leaders have several preschool groups in different schools.
Kindergarden leaders and principals do lot of co-operation with planning, organizing and evaluating pre-primary (class 0) education and education in first and second grade classes. Staff of classes 0-2are working together weekly and in some schools even daily. Pre primary teachers as well class teachers regroup children many different ways not just according the age. They can have mixed group children age 6-8 or they can have group of children who already can read and group wherechildren are learning to read. These groups are organized according to children skills and needs ofsupport. The idea behind this co-operation in Tampere is that lower the step from pre-primary to school and also give children individual support or challenge.
According to City of Tampere Mayor ́s programme 2017-2021 Tampere want to excel in developing new kinds of learning environments. Teaching of preschoolers and first and second-graders will be realized as a local service. The city`s objective is to enable high-quality, individual and communal growth and learning. One important thing to reach these goals are new Kindergarden and small children school buildings where it is easy to use ICT in preschoolers ́ learning process.
