Our school
First High School in Celje (I.gimnazija v Celju) was established in 1808 and it has a rich history. At the beginning, the lessons were in German as the majority of people in Celje spoke German at the time. During the First World War, the building, where our school is accommodated now, served as a military hospital. In front of our school everyone can notice a monument dedicated to Karl Destovnik Kajuh, a Slovene poet. He attended our school and died during the Second World War fighting for our country. Locally our school is often called “Kajuh,” after the poet.
Our high school offers four educational streams: general, classical, musical, and a special stream for prospective athletes. The general stream provides its students with a good general education. In the classical stream the stress is on history, literature, and languages, in particular Latin. The musical stream allows students enough time for practicing their instruments. The stream for athletes offers more physical education and an individual approach in cases of absence during matches or tournaments. Many successful Slovenian athletes attended the First High School in Celje. For example, handball players Gašper Marguč, Luka Žvižej (both have played for the national team at European and World Championships), and Domen Makuc (currently playing for Barcelona and carrying the title of one of the most promising players in Europe), slalom-canoeist and Olympic runner-up Peter Kauzer, basketball player and two-time NBA champion with the San Antonio Spurs Beno Udrih, Anamaria Velenšek a bronze medalist at 2016 Oympic Games, and others. Our school carries the national title of the best high school for athletes. The school also organizes a football league and volleyball league for all students.
Our high school prepares students for studies at university level and it ends with a state exam called matura. We (class 3.b) are in the general steam and we learn French as our second foreign language. We like the language and we find French culture very interesting.
School atmosphere
The classes in our school start very early, at 8 o’clock or sometimes at 7.10 a.m. We have 6 to 8 lessons per day. The lessons usually end around 2 p.m. We have lunch at school and the lunchbreak lasts 45 minutes.
The subjects we study in the third year are mathematics, Slovene, English, physics, biology, chemistry, physical education, sociology, geography, and history. We can also decide which language we want to study as our second foreign language. Our school offers French, German and Spanish. Some students also chose a third foreign language such as Italian or Russian. For matura, the final exam, students have to take five subjects all together. Three subjects (Slovene, mathematics, and English) are compulsory, and the next two subjects are electives. At the end of the third year before entering the last (i.e. fourth) year, students have to decide which two electives they will take for their matura exam.
The atmosphere at our school is really fun and relaxed. The relations between students and teachers are good. The teachers are understanding, fun and available to us. We also get along very well with our classmates and we help each other. The best period at our school is the Christmas season, because we have a lot of activities and concerts. Our school also organizes many sports days, cultural events, excursions in Slovenia as well as abroad.
School activities
First High School in Celje is a big school with a wide variety of extracurricular activities and clubs.
A club that attracts many students is the school choir. Last year the singers participated in the 33rd International festival and choral competition, Praga Cantat 2019. Despite keen competition, the choir won five different prizes, including the title of champions in the category of young choirs. Every year they give two concerts, one along with the school orchestra and one on their own. There are also an all-boys and all-girls octets, which take part in many events.
Our school has two theatre groups. One is intended for students who take Latin only, and the other is offered to everyone interested in directing or playing.
There are also clubs for natural sciences, social sciences, chemistry, sustainable development, biology, astronomy, photography and video, computer programming, mathematics, financial mathematics, entertainment mathematics, logic, journalism (Kajuh press), school radio, debate, literature, research work, volunteering, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and the French club. School engages in several international projects along with ERASMUS +. There are many champions in each of these clubs. The champion we are the most proud of at the moment is Luka Horjak, who got the first gold medal for Slovenia at the 61st International Mathematical Olympiad Saint-Petersburg Russia 2020.
In the French club we focus mainly on cultural events in the French language. Last year, the club performed at the opening of the exhibition of the collection of translations of the book The Little Prince. Due to COVID-19, our performance on francophone day got cancelled. However, we have explored Madagascar with our native French speaker, Mary Ellen Ramasimanana Virtič, who was born there.
