The Slovenian school legislation encourages a team approach on the field of working with children/students with special needs. The Placement of Children with Special Needs act (2011) acquires demands team planning accompaniment and evaluation of the individualized program from an appointed professional group. In practice, some teachers and special education teachers often use an individual approach when teaching children with special needs, while in the last few years there has been emphasis on team work and its advantages. Teachers have different opinions on working with other professionals when it comes to upbringing and education. Their point of view is based on their own ability to work in a team, on the diversity of their experiences with team work and how they personally value team work and all it has to offer, not only for special needs children, but also for every single person in the team and even for school as an institution. Some Slovenian and foreign studies show, that most teachers have a positive attitude towards collaboration with other workers in their profession and are fond of team work. Research results also show many advantages of team work, such as increased learning ability of the children and the professional growth of teachers. The most common problem teachers face when collaborating with other educators is their lack of knowledge when it comes to working with special needs children and the lack of time for team planning. In an empirical study within this master thesis I research what are the lower secondary teachers’ attitudes towards team work with special education teachers. I also wanted to check what kind of experience they have with this particular teaching approach. I conducted a quantitative study, shaped as a survey of 105 lower secondary level teachers from the region of Pomurje. The acquired data was statically processed with SPSS programme. The obtained results of the survey get the insight into the existing educational practice of team work with special education teachers in the Pomurje region. The results show that lower secondary level teachers have a positive attitudes and experience of team work with special education teachers. The advantages of team work teachers identified were mostly connected with students learning progress as well with their own professional growth.
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