DEVELOPMENT OF PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS’ CRITICAL THINKING AS A SOFT SKILL IN THE NEW UKRAINIAN SCHOOL CONDITIONS

Introduction. The state standard of primary education defines general and compulsory learning outcomes that reflect the personal achievements of pupils in the competencies categories. Such results are acquired by a person who is able to demonstrate the competencies after graduation at a certain level of education, and the prerequisite for their forming are knowledge, skills, abilities, ways of thinking, attitudes, values and other individual qualities. The document, along with the effective description of competencies, refers to «cross-cutting» or «common to all key competencies skills.» It was assumed that they are analogous to the phenomena of supra-subject and general learning skills established in didactics. It is important to develop pupils' critical thinking as one of the soft skills in modern education. Purpose. The aim of the paper is to analyze modern approaches to the critical thinking development as a primary school pupils' skill; to reveal the meaning, content and signs of critical thinking as one of the components of cross-cutting skills of primary school pupils'; clarify the meaning of the concepts of «soft skills» and «critical thinking». Methods. It has been used the research methods: studying regulatory documents and works on topical issues of primary education, analysis, synthesis of philosophical, psychological and pedagogical, methodological literature on the issue; comparison, systematization of theoretical and practical experience. Originality. It is a multifaceted ability aimed at socializing the learner, which includes psychological, cognitive, intellectual and communicative interaction to manage their own educational and professional activities; awareness and appreciation of the interdependence between people and systems in the global world. The legislative educational documents of Ukraine on the introduction of the developing primary school pupils' soft skills are analyzed. Results. The analysis of Ukrainian and foreign scientists' achievements on the research topic showed that the soft skills' forming is the subject of research in psychology, sociology, pedagogy and other sciences. The generalization of the scientists' research results allows us to state that most of them refer soft skills to the socio-psychological category. According to the New Ukrainian School Concept (2016), the so-called soft skills are common to all the competencies: reading comprehension, ability to express one's opinion orally and in writing, critical and systematic thinking, ability to justify the position logically, creativity, initiative, constructive emotion management, risk assessment, decision making, problem solving, ability to cooperate with others. Analyzing the State Standard of Primary Education (2018) revealed that soft skills include: sociability, emotional intelligence, thinking by «results» and «processes», work with technology, organizational skills, intellectual literacy, leadership and many others. They can be developed directly during the lesson and in extracurricular activities. The State Standard of Primary Education (2018) defines that critical thinking is one of the soft skills common to all key primary school p0upils' competencies. The new Law of Ukraine «On Comprehensive General Secondary Education» (2020) also emphasizes the need to form soft skills, comprehensive development, education, upbringing, talent identification, socialization of a person capable of living in society and civilizational interact with nature, striving for self-improvement and lifelong learning, ready for conscious self-realization and responsibility, work and civic activity, caring for family, country, environment, directing their activities for the benefit of others and society. Conclusions. In view of the above, we have concluded that critical thinking is one of the most important soft skills.