After-school activities

The school actively participates in many national and international projects, competitions, and shows.  

In these international projects, such as the Erasmus+ lifelong learning programme, the Erasmus+exchange programme and the UNESCO participatory project, our students have opportunities to apply, improve and develop the database of their knowledge, and also to gain new skills, establish relationships, and co-operate with foreign partners. They also have a chance to appraise the basic features of academic work. Students learn how to sift facts and evidence, and afterwards they are ready to present the results of their work either in Slovakia or abroad.

The aim of the UNESCO participatory project Preserve and protect the heritage of your ancestors is to make more visible our material and immaterial heritage, mainly in the area around Banská Štiavnica, and subsequently to compare the materials used and the knowledge gained with those of our foreign peers. The work was realized in two parts: scientific and ethnographic.

The teachers make strenuous efforts to guide the students to work independently while acquiring new skills. One upshot of this is Project Day,  during which the students of the third grade present in public the results of a year's work on a specific topic that they have chosen themselves. The presentations of this project work are given in several classrooms, before groups of students and small committees of expert teachers. Our long-term aim is to extend this kind of project work to students of lower grades and to organise the presentations in such a way that members of the general public may attend them.

Cooperation and partnership with universities is very important to the school. We have developed, for example, a constructive relationship with  Comenius University in Bratislava, which has carried out a project called  ProVek, involving the promotion of  careers in the natural sciences aimed at  secondary schools, where interesting topics from the field of scientific  knowledge have been presented in  the form of video conferencing. Our students have developed a strong interest in watching lectures and experiments online, as well as in the opportunities afforded to be involved in discussions.

Our school has also been working for several years now with the League against Cancer. Many activities highlight the crucial importance of a healthy lifestyle as a determining factor in greatly reducing the risk of cancer. Cancer issues are not taught as a separate subject, but are  discussed within the school subjects of Biology and Ecology, in seminars and (more especially) in extra-curricular activities. Students of the school regularly commemorate the Week against Cancer, Apple Day, the Day of Health and Nutrition, Non-Smoking Day, Blood Drop Day and Daffodil Day. 
Any one of these activities can help the students to orient themselves in one or more scientific disciplines, and may even determine the direction of their further undergraduate studies.

Apart from working on international projects, students participate in various curricular activities such as: astronomy, tourism, chemical topics, foreign languages (Russian, French, German and Spanish), Drama Club, mathematics, table tennis, skiing and history. The students are also involved in different Olympiads and special competitions.

Students, however, have balanced opportunities between mental and physical loads during the school year. For physical education and sporting activities, there are two multi-purpose sports grounds, a gymnastics hall, and another gym for doing sports and fitness games. Swimming is another popular sporting activity which is practised at the school twice a week within physical education hours in the nearby swimming pool for students. The school organizes all-year-round swimming courses, and also all-year-round hiking and biking trails. Additionally, the school organizes ski trips during the winter, and during spring school breaks and the summer holidays seaside trips are offered. Students are involved in various sports competitions - cross-country running, volleyball, basketball, table tennis, football and athletics.

Considerable funding for the modernization of the educational process and extracurricular activities  is received by the school from parents‘ donations, sponsors and donors. Accommodation for our student boarders is available in the dormitory - founded by the District of Banská Bystrica (VÚC).

There is a great deal to do in Banská Štiavnica, and visitors can find many cultural and sporting activities here. There are several museums, cinemas, and youth clubs, extensive botanical gardens, a football stadium, an indoor swimming pool, and several gyms and children‘s playgrounds.