ESSENCE AND CONTENT OF HEALTH-PRESERVING COMPETENCE OF PRESCHOOLERS

Abstract

The essence and content of the competence approach and its important and necessary component – health-preserving competence of preschoolers – is analysed in the article. It is proved that modern conditions create the necessity to find new strategies and paradigms of education, taking into account the processes of globalization, informatization, integration, urbanization and technologicalization of public life, where education plays an important role.
We confirm the fact that the formation of vital competencies should be started at an early age, when all the sensitive periods of the child are activated, and he makes his direct acquaintance with the world, nature and people around. We believe that especially important institutions that systematically influence these processes are the following: the nuclear and extended family, preschool and extra-scholastic education institutions. Among the key competencies that are vital to everyone throughout the life is healthcare competence. Its formation should be systematically started within the limits of preschool age, gradually enriching and expanding its content and applied aspect.
The purpose of key competencies in their modern interpretation and understanding is to create such an educational field that would be focused on the needs of the present and the future. We should take care not only of technological, economic, social realities, but, above all, of the child’s health from an early age.
The essence and content of healthcare (health-preserving) competence lies in systematic education and maintenance of the natural balance of children’s lives, making the most of natural factors to organize children’s lives, develop motor skills, deepen the child’s knowledge of their health and the health of others, create conditions for the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, to teach the acquisition of health care skills, etc. In general, it should be considered a priority to develop a standard of healthy living from an early age. Innovative technologies that will help the teacher and the child to implement health-preserving competence and widely use it in the practice of their own lives are considered as well quite reasonable.