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The article describes the results of the development and testing of a scale for evaluating conditions for the development of creative abilities in kindergarten. The review part discusses the process of “democratizing the concept of creativity” and changing ideas about the importance of developing creative abilities in preschool childhood as a significant trend in modern psychology and education. The methodological basis of the work is: structural-dialectical approach (N. Veraksa), where the construct of “dialectical thinking” is used to describe intellectual creativity, which is understood as a system of mental actions that allows solving paradoxical situations, transforming contradictory situations in such a way that a new solution to the problem appears; the concept of imagination, which is understood as the ability to “grasp” the whole before the parts and transfer the features of one object of reality to another (Ilyenkov, 1984; Dyachenko, 1996); an approach to the development of ECERS quality assessment scales.

The scale for assessing the conditions for the development of creative abilities in kindergarten presented in the article includes four indicators: understanding of development processes, questioning, invention and transformation of contradictions, imagination.

32 preschool groups took part in the approbation. The validity of the instrument was assessed by the method of contrasting groups identified on the basis of expert assessments. Reliability was determined by the method of consistency of expert assessments: in each group, experts carried out the assessment in pairs and independently of each other. The focus of the observations was: working with imagination, quality questions addressed to children, to allow easy experimentation, supportive emotional atmosphere, sensitivity to children new and original solutions and inventions emphasis is on working with thinking as a process, reflecting the processes of change and transformation, capable to resolve conflicts.

The analysis showed that the assessment tool makes it possible to distinguish between contrasting groups for all four indicators at a significance level not lower than 0.05, which indicates its validity. Also, a high consistency of expert assessments was found both at the level of indicators and at the level of individual indicators, which indicates its reliability. The Alpha-Cronbach coefficient is 0.87, which indicates a good level of internal consistency of the instrument. The tool allows to identify and analyze the parameters of the quality of preschool education, attention to which is not emphasized in other scales, for example, in the ECERS-3 scales for a comprehensive assessment of the quality of preschool education.

The obtained data on the reliability and validity of the developed tool allow us to conclude that it can be used to assess the conditions for supporting and developing the creative abilities of children in preschool groups.

The article analyzes modern studies of the play of preschool children, identifies a set of conditions necessary for its development, including three groups of parameters: characteristics of the subject-spatial environment, teacher–children interaction, support for children’s interaction. The crisis of the play disappearance is seen as an opportunity to establish a dialogue between researchers from different countries, rethink existing programs, eliminate the contradiction of the visibility of the play and at the same time its absence in kindergarten, and strengthen the conditions that support the true game. The greatest educational potential has an open, transformable environment that challenges the child, and the partner position of an adult who does not exploit the game for educational purposes, but supports children’s interaction and co-construction of the game plan. For optimal support of the game at preschool age, the teacher must also provide access to a variety of multifunctional materials, structure the program so that children have enough free time to play during the day, create conditions for communication and joint play of children of different ages.

The article discusses the experience and results of the researches of emotional well-being of preschoolers, especially 6–7 year old children. The factors that affect the emotional well-being of preschool children in the family and in educational organizations and educational opportunities of the environment (values and ways of interaction of teachers with children, designing of the environment of a kindergarten, planning of current activities) are considered separately, in particular those increasing emotional well-being of children. The principal trends of the current approach to the study of emotional well-being: a synthesis of achievements of different theories, a shift in the study of emotional well-being from problems to its positive manifestations, interest in the opinion of children themselves, complexity (inclusion of all stakeholders in the study design – children, parents, teachers) and variety of methods. The relevance of the study, based on the «child’s voice», reflections by educators and parents, and structured video analysis, is shown.

The article is devoted to the results of a pilot study of the relationship between the quality of the educational environment in preschool groups and the level of development of creative thinking of preschool children and the study of the development of creative thinking of teachers in solving pedagogical problems.

The study is based on the idea of the quality of education inherent in the Federal State Educational Standard of Preschool Education, the cultural and historical concept of L.S. Vygotsky’s and structural-dialectical approach, describing dialectical thinking as the ability to creatively transform objects and situations. The study was aimed at studying the possible relationships between the quality of the educational environment in preschool groups and the level of development of the dialectical thinking of children, as well as the ability of adults (teachers) to use creative thinking tools to solve professional problems: designing an educational action and developing dialogue with a child.

The study was conducted on a random sample of preschool departments of educational complexes in Moscow (a total of 103 children from 5 to 6.5 years old and 35 teachers). To assess the quality of the educational environment, we used the ECERS scale and the pilot version of the scale “Stimulating dialectical thinking”. To assess the creative thinking of preschoolers, a block of techniques was used to measure the level of dialectical thinking, and for adults, a methodology was developed and tested for studying mental strategies in solving professional pedagogical problems.

The article is devoted to the description of CLASS observation methodology, developed for the analysis and evaluation of interaction between the teacher and children in the kindergarten group. There are three main areas and criteria for evaluation of this tool: emotional support, organization of work in a group and methodological support. The article reviews studies carried out during past 20 years. Research show the impact of the criteria identified in this methodology or the overall level of pedagogical skill measured using the CLASS methodology on the cognitive, regulatory and emotional-personal development of preschool children. The analysis shows the importance of assessing the interaction of the teacher with children in pre-school institutions for scientific and practical research in the field of preschool education and development, and also shows the possibilities of using this tool to assess the quality of education in Russia.

The following article is devoted to the study of parents’ attitude to the content and forms of the educational process in preschool institutions. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the following three aspects: an assessment of parents’ overall satisfaction with the educational process; an assessment of the parental stance on the quality of education in kindergarten; the parental stance on the efficiency of teaching and development of the child’s personality in kindergarten. The article is based on a questionnaire survey of 486 parents of senior preschool aged children attending kindergartens in Moscow. The questionnaire used in the research was developed by the group of the Center for the Sociology of Education of the Russian Academy of Education. The respondents were given a wide range of questions related to their attitude to the system of preschool education, their life values, characteristics of child-parent relations, etc. The article analyzes the particularities of parents’ attitudes toward the educational process in preschool institutions, depending on the influence of socio-demographic (sex, age) and socio-stratification (financial status, level of education, two or one-parent family) factors. The results reveal the clear domination of positive parental characterization of the content and form of classes conducted in the kindergartens of Moscow, as well as positive characterization of the professional qualifications of the teachers. The received materials also testify that the overwhelming majority of modern parents of preschool children highly appreciate the quality of the child’s education in kindergarten in various directions (development of speech, literacy, development of elementary mathematical representations, formation of ideas about nature, design, aesthetic development, physical culture, patriotic education). The data given in the article allows us to conclude that parents with low material status tend to estimate the positive influence of the kindergarten on the development of their child significantly below those of other social classes.

This article deals with the nature of partnerships with parents as a condition for the quality of preschool education. According to the legal framework, parents are customers of preschool services and interaction with them should determine the efficiency of educational organizations. Preschool organizations in the Association of Educators and Psychologists of the Education Division in Leninskiy District in Yekaterinburg regularly examined the understanding of educators about transformations in the modern parent-child relationship. The results of this monitoring show that in the last few years the main problem of interaction within families is parents’ delegation of their own responsibility for the child and the development of “parental helplessness”. Therefore, most preschools focus on the improvement of psychological and pedagogical culture for the young parents. The main goal of the work in kindergarten №26 Yekaterinburg’s Leninskiy District was to train educators for interaction with a child’s family in accordance with the ECERS-R. The conditions of a partnership between the kindergarten and the families of the children were defined on the basis of observation, questionnaires, monitoring and the sub-scale “Parents and Staff” of the ECERS-R. The research consisted of many stages and included an introduction to the concept of quality in the field of education, the design of a common criteria for work with families and modern mechanisms for interaction with the parents. As a result, the system of partnerships with parents was designed. It creates the conditions for various types of family involvement in the child’s life in kindergarten and a regular informative exchange between parents and educators for the improvement of the parent-child relationship. The article presents the specific practical experience of a partnership between educators and parents and the issues of implementation in the kindergarten curriculum.

This article presents the findings of research on the quality of early childhood education and care in Moscow. This research is based on insight into the quality of early childhood education and care built in to The Federal State Educational Standard for Preschool Education and the cultural-historical ideas of L. Vygotsky. The main aim of this field research is to investigate “the strong points” and drawbacks of early childhood education and care in the capital city. The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R) is used as an instrument of field research. The results are based on a random sample of 36 preschools and kindergartens in one of the districts of Moscow. The research gathers data about the most comfortable and least comfortable aspects of the learning environment in the preschools and kindergartens of Moscow. Taking into consideration the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standards, the findings of the research revealed that the most important line of learning environment development in preschool and kindergarten are individual early care and education program, support for the independence of children, the creation of a more available and mobile environment, and optimal conditions for the development of thinking, imagination and child creativity.

In the article current trends of development of early years education are analyzed. Special attention is paid to trends that appeared in accordance with ideas of Lev Vygotsky: to combine non-directive interaction between adult and child and to stimulate child development. The article describes modern tools of evaluation of the educational environment that supports this educational model. Educational standards are the institutional mechanism of quality support of preschool education. Particular attention is paid to American and German approach to assessment of the quality of preschool education. Based on the analysis of systems of these countries author identifies some of the universal trends of preschool education: change of vision of quality of early childhood education, which can be labeled as a “paradigm shift from a paradigm of Piaget to paradigm of Vygotsky” and the creation of an independent system of accreditation of educational programs.