New School Year (2020/21)
Like other primary and secondary schools across Slovenia, Gimnazija Vič opened its doors again on 1st September to a brand new generation of students and to those who are moving up through the years during their time with us.
For the weeks leading up to this day, teaching staff were working alongside the school leadership to make sure that our students would be able to return to full days of classes whether the decision was made to have in-class teaching or move to a distance-learning system. The choice of the national government for schools to open for students to attend in person was welcomed across the board.
At our school, for the foreseeable future, lessons will be held according to the standard timetable but students will remain in a single classroom through the day, creating the type of school-based social bubble used by education systems in other countries as well. New rules have also been brought in to ensure that we limit any spread of the COVID virus within our school building. These are connected to increased hand-washing, the wearing of masks and following of physical distancing advice in shared spaces, an enhanced cleaning and sanitising programme for classrooms, and new systems for using facilities such as the school library and canteen.
For our upper three years of students, the new term was a chance to catch up with teachers and classmates again before going straight into their work and projects for the year ahead.
However, for our new generation of students, plans were made to welcome them properly to our school community and to introduce them to the new young people who will be sharing their class for the next four years. Normally this is done by taking the classes into the Slovenian countryside for our annual “Getting to know each other” camp but this was impossible this year due to health-related restrictions.
The teaching and student support staff refused to be beaten and came up with an alternative plan whereby the camp would still take place but be held in the school grounds rather than travelling to another location in Slovenia. As well as the standard camping practises, students got the chance to make new friends and build strong class bonds through a great range of games and activities. While it was not the sort of occasion that is usually put together, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and we would like to take the opportunity to thank all those who planned and took part in this project for our new students.
We take this chance to welcome our first year students to Gimnazija Vič and wish them, along with all those young people already part of our school community, all the very best through the year ahead.