This year’s main theme was ethno music, which brought about numerous arrangements of folk songs from Slovenia and abroad. The heart and soul of the festival, Damijan Močnik, claims this year’s festival has been the best in every aspect. The winning song was an arrangement of a Slovene folk song Marko skače /Marko Is Jumping/made by Marko Rus, with inspiring choreography by Blaž Pavlakovič, who was also the class’ conductor. They are both members of the winning class, as is the author of the following report:
Every January and February something changes at the Diocesan Classical Gymnasium. If one listens closely, singing can be heard from every classroom during breaks and even classes. Preparations for the traditional annual singing festival are in full swing. What is the singing festival anyway? The entire school community lives for this event. It does not matter whether you are the next Mozart or completely out of tune, you sing together with your classmates. Some classes practise for months, aiming to win, while others start a week before and participate just for fun. On the festival day, the tension grows as the school hall fills to the brim with students, teachers and other visitors. The roaring applause marks the beginning of the show and the teachers perform their arrangement, which usually causes salves of laughter. Then the real competition begins. Once you step on the stage, the adrenaline kicks in and you just sing your heart out together with your friends. The rush of performing is indescribable and once you sing that last note you already feel like you are on top of the world. At the end, the judges retreat to discuss the winners. Meanwhile, the stand-up comedians take over relieving the tension. The classes that practiced the most are hoping to snatch an award. Best debutants, best cover, best original song and best choreography are just some of the awards given. Of course there is the reward for the best singing class. The Oscar of the festival. Two runners-up are also awarded, but winning the first place is a dream. Especially if you are a part of the class that won for the second year in a row and receive three awards on this year’s singing festival. /Klara Jukič Wilfan, year 4/

Prospective students, families and friends of St. Stanislav’s Institution are kindly invited to St. Stanislav’s Admission Information Day to be held on 12th February at 9 a.m. and 15 p.m. and 13th February 2016 at 9 a.m. A presentations by faculty and current students will offer ample information on school programme, covering academics, arts, athletic facilities and life at St. Stanislav’s as well as on extracurricular activities. You will also learn about admission procedures to enter The Diocessan Classical Gymnasium and The Jeglic Student Home. For a more detailed schedule please call +386 (0)1 582 22 45 or write at [email protected].
We look forward to welcoming you to St. Stanislav’s Institution.

Yuka Marubashi, an English teacher at Kanto Daiichi High School in Tokyo, Japan visited St. Stanislav’s Institution from 30th January-3rd February 2016. She held several lessons in the DCG classes to unveil some cultural, social and educational aspects of the country. Students were especially impressed by the Japanese manners and etiquette, which differ widely from Slovene ways. The quiz on Japan and Slovenia brought about some competitive spirit among students and excited amazement at the large number of Japanese high tech products used in Europe and our school as well. This was a unique firsthand learning opportunity to provide students also with some basic Japanese words as well as Katakana and Hiragana alphabets.
The entire school community had the pleasure of Yuka’s company and performing at the traditional annual school singing festival. /Lily Schweiger Kotar/

Last weekend was extremely successful for four students of the DCG who took part in the Slovene national competition in astronomy. These are Matej Urbančič (year 1), Gašper Jalen (year 2), Vid Primožič (year 3) and Andraž Ristič (year 4). The seniors Andraž and Vid won the gold, thus gaining potential invitation to the XXIIIrd Astronomy Olympiad to be held in Saint Petersburg in spring 2016. There will be five representatives of Slovenia altogether participating in the international Olympiad. Matej and Gašper won the silver. Mark Loborec from Alojzij Šuštar Primary School also entered the qualifications for the Olympiad in his category.

Saint Petersburg Astronomy Olympiad is an annual international competition for high school students in solving astronomy problems and is attended by about 5000 students from Russian Federation, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Serbia,, Ukraine, Canada and Slovenia, Many prizewinners become professional astronomers and work in different astronomical institutions  all over the world.

Congratulations to all young scientists and good luck with qualifications!

“Exchanges are a great way to learn about different cultures, meet delightful people and travel to foreign countries. We have experienced all these and a lot more first-hand during this week as a part of the Erasmus+ exchange, Art Nouveau – Art Renouveau. The Slovene group wishes to thank all the participants, the Bulgarians, the French, the Germans, the Romanians and the Scots, for the amazing energy and atmosphere around us during preparation period before your arrival to Slovenia and the great work we have done during this week. At the same time, we would like to say how happy we are to have such great new friends! We hope that our newly made friendships will be long standing.” (Manca Karčnik on behalf of the Slovene team)

Prospective students, their parents and friends of St. Stanislav’s Institution are kindly invited to the open house day which will be held on 30th January 2016. They will become familiar with school programme and its facilities by attending classes in action at the Diocesan Classical Gymnasium (8.00 – 9.55 a.m.) undertaking a guided tour of gymnasium and The Jeglič Students Home various facilities (8.00-12.10 a.m.) and by listening to one of the five school choirs singing. You can attended classes in The Music School of St. Stanislav’s Institution (9.00-12.00 a.m.) or joining the guided tour of J. F. Gnidovec Residence Hall (at 12.00 a.m.). Basic information on all schools in St. Stanislav’s Institution will be available on that day.  For a more detailed schedule please contact on +386 (0)1 582 22 45 or [email protected].
St. Stanislav’s admission information day will be held on 12th February at 9 a.m. and 15 p.m. and 13th February 2016 at 9 a.m.
We look forward to welcoming you to St. Stanislav’s Institution.

We are proud that Dagmar Nared, graduate of the Diocesan Classical Gymnasium, has been chosen by the Slovene government as the Slovene representative to take active part in the Vienna UN Assembly. This is an annual event at which candidates from the entire world are invited to contribute to the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime /UNODC/ Youth Forum. Candidates are nominated for being outstanding youth leaders in the area of substance use prevention. They will be discussing the problems related to drug prevention, exchanging ideas and visions. The results of the discussion will contribute to the Special Session of the General UN Assembly on the world drug problem held in April 2016 in New York.
Dagmar says: »I was lucky to get chosen to participate in this event. I was nominated because of my hard work I put in the national youth organisation No Excuse Slovenia. You can find more about our projects on our webpage noexcuse.si or like us on Facebook at No Excuse Slovenia.« /Lily Schweiger Kotar/

Teaching Learning Activity as a part of the project Art Nouveau – Art Renouveau, Erasmus +, took place from 17th-23rd January 2016 in The Diocesan Classical Gymnasium. The purpose of the seven-day activities was to get to know the Art Nouveau movement in Slovenia and to create new ‘art renouveau’ works of art. Forty-seven students  and teachers from Bulgaria, France, Germany, Rumania and Scotland will study, explored and had fun together with Slovenian participants and their families. The mentor of the project at St. Stanislav’s Institution was Alenka Battelino, teacher of English.

Arrival Day: Sunday, 17th January 2016

This Sunday started in anticipation of the Erasmus guests’ arrival. Everyone at home was nervously cleaning, tidying up and organizing everything so that we could await our guests in the best possible state. The guests were from different countries and so were the scheduled times of arrival in Ljubljana. Since my brother and I were both hosting exchange students from two different countries, we welcomed our German guest at 4:30 pm and our French guest four hours later. The first conversations are always short and awkward so it wasn’t much different in our case. We discussed topics from weather to school grading system in Germany and France. Our guests, who felt rather exhausted from the trip, and us, tired out by the stress, went to sleep at a relatively early hour in keen anticipation of the following week full of new adventures. (Maria Heller, Slovenia)

Day One: Monday, 18th January 2016

The students and our guests arrived at the school in the early morning hours. The guests were welcomed by the headmaster and posed for a group photo in the Matija Tomc Hall. A detailed presentation about Art Nouveau in Slovenia prepared by four Slovene senior students followed. When the introduction to Art Nouveau was over, ReMixed Choir of the Diocesan Classical Gymnasium put on a musical performance. The groups of foreign students were taken to the cafeteria to have lunch and then took a bus to the Ljubljana city centre. There, we were divided into four groups, each group consisting of students from all five countries, their teachers and a tour guide. The guides then proceeded to show us around the city, presenting Art Nouveau buildings of Ljubljana such as the Hauptmann house, The Sokol Gymnastic Society Hall, Grand Hotel Union and many more. After lunch, there was some time to explore the city on our own. At a quarter past four the programme formally ended and we were free to leave the city and return home with our guests. (Erna Killer in Lara Grum)

Day two: Tuesday, 19th January

We woke up in now a little better known beds and we drove with our hosts to the big and an easy- to- get- lost place, which is our hosts’ school, St. Stanislav’s. After a short presentation of the history of the Institution we went on a tour around it. We saw the main chapel with a mosaic, the school library, a sports hall, the biology corner, and they told us a few facts about this school from the first hand. After that we had workshops of drawing and microscoping. One was more creative: we were drawing the art noveau motifs. The other was connected to the morning session where we microscoped all sorts of things. The most interesting was to microscope the snakes’ skin.
In the afternoon we had three other optional workshops: living art, jewellery and graphic design. (Kathrin Quick and Anika Odar)

Day Three: Wednesday, 20th January

As usual foreign students met in Matija Tomc Hall, where Mrs. Battelino welcomed us and unfolded the plans for the day. The presentation on Slovenia followed. Later, we all started the workshops which were on graphic design, literature and architecture. In the graphic design workshop students worked on computers. In literature workshop they had to translate poems from English, French and German into their mother toungue or first foreign language. Finally in the architecture workshop, students decided on the basis of a picture of a building, which elements they liked the most so they could decorate some new building decoration. After the workshops hosts picked up their guests and headed home.

 

Day Four: Thursday, 21st January

On this day the participants in the Erasmus+ project Art Nouveau – Art Renouveau in Slovenia went on a trip to Škocjan Caves and coastal town of Piran, enjoying workshops, related to Art Nouveau.
We set off at 7.45am towards Piran. On the bus, we heard some data about Karst and Piran and soon we arrived to Škocjan Caves, where we descended into the depths of this Karst ruby. In the caves we admired the diversity of the cave system, some beautiful stalactites and stalagmites and were amazed by the stunning underground canyon, which is said to be the biggest in Europe. Through the canyon flows the river River and the guide told us about its past flooding that once reached the height of 140 metres. At our deepest point in the cave, we stood 170 metres under the ground. Upon leaving this wonderful cave system, protected by UNESCO and other organizations, we had lunch and headed towards a beautiful coastal town Piran.
We were divided into three groups, each led by a Slovene student as a guide. First, we visited Tartini Theatre, where we saw some beautiful Art Nouveau ceiling paintings and other elements of the era and then proceeded to Tartini square. There we learned about Giuseppe Tartini, the famous composer, listened to the legend still alive in the red Venetian house and saw the Court, Town hall and the church. Afterwards we walked all the way up to St. George’s Parish church, where we found out a lot about the church itself, enjoyed the magnificent view, the city defence walls and so much more. Some free time followed, but soon after we listened to a presentation given by the Institute for Mediterranean Heritage in Slovenia and then the workshops started. There were three workshops: one on calligraphy, the other on making utensils and the last one on drawing, which eventually turned into drawing the city’s landscape thanks to sunny and warm weather. After these very creative workshops, we took a walk down the coast and headed home. The day has left a lasting memory of a wonderful experience of both Piran and the Karst caves. (Alexander Centa)

WORKSHOPS PRESENTATIONS

Workshop Presentation: Living art
Albrecht Dürer said that »a good painter is full of invention within and were he able to live for ever, he would always have something new to bring forth. « How true is that we found out at the workshop Living art. It was a completely new technique to us and it inspired us because in this case it wasn’t only us who were creating, also bacteria were.
After a short explanation about what and how we are going to work, we took papers and made some sketches. When we came to serious business, we had to comply with safety instructions. With protective masks, gloves and chemistry gown we looked like professionals. In the flame we sterilized special sticks and with them we touched the bacteria of particular colour. We put our sketches under petri dishes, so we were able to see the pattern, we drew by using sticks “infected” with bacteria. We couldn’t see what we were actually drawing, which we found funny. The weakest point was the smell – bacteria stink.
Since we didn’t see the tracks of bacteria, we are excited to see the final result. Our paintings are going to develop day in, day out, which means we really participated by creating living art. (Nadezhda Ivanova Zlatokova, Alper Selim Aliosman, Coman Dumitru-Alexandru, Nanau Bianca-Nicoleta, Francesca Bailie, Marija Poklukar)

 

Workshop Presentation: Architecture
The architecture workshop started at 9 o’clock in primary school. We were divided into four groups and three students of architecture explained what we were to do. In the first workshop each group got a picture of a Secession building that we saw on Monday in Ljubljana and got various materials from which we had to make a pavilion or a model. They all turned out very well and each one was different form others. In the second workshop (after lunch) each group got a picture of a Secession facade with colourful patterns and a few potatoes. We cut the potatoes in different shapes, thus creating the stamps. We got the colours that were also used on the building in the picture. We dip the stamps in colours and pressed them on the paper, so we got different patterns that were inspired by the building in our picture. The whole architecture workshop was really interesting and fun and I believe we all enjoyed it. (Tinkara Toplak, Tinkara Uršič Fratina)

 

Workshop Presentation: Graphic Design
Graphic design workshop aimed at teaching the participants how to use the basic tools in InkScape and create a pattern with only one square. The created design was then printed on coffee mugs.
On Tuesday Mrs Nina Malovrh tought us about InkScape. We all created the same pattern. Following her instructions, we tried to do the things she showed. If we did not know how to continue or use something, we consulted two Slovene students who are experts in this field. We finished our tasks in about three hours. Mrs Malovrh also suggested considering Wednesday designs iun order not to not spend too much time only on thinking what to do.
On Wednesday we commenced with some sketches on a piece of paper and we started creating. Everyone was doing a different thing. Some of us made Art Nouveau themed designs with flowers and birds and motives from Art Nouveau buildings, whereas others went in a different direction such as pixel designs or just random patterns. A variety of techniques were used. Some just drew shapes without any references, some searched for inspiration and tried to recreate an image and some took photos and turned them into drawings. The patterns were made in a number of ways, too. Many did the square first and then just copied more squares but most of us simply applied shapes and lines directly on to blank mug print. Some of the young designers finished faster than others, so they were told to create their phone screensaver in order to match their phone and mug designs.

 

The meeting took place on 12th January 2016 in The Good Shepherd Kindergarten. After the headmistress’ address and a warm welcome given by guardians and children, a puppet Shepherd paid a visit with fresh news from the skiing trip he had just completed. The regular meeting and a common lunch followed. On Saturday 16th April 2016 a joint meeting of guardians and headmasters of all Slovene Catholic kindergartens will take place. The Archbishop of Ljubljana Msgr. Stanislav Zore will address the participants from the perspective of the holy year of mercy.

Sara Stadler was proclaimed the 20th Slovene Queen of Wine on 8th January 2016 after being elected by a commission consisting of professionals and sponsors. The Slovene Minister of Agriculture Dejan Židan crowned the new Wine Queen. The title brings together all Slovene wine regions and in 2016 Sara will represent wines, viticulture, tourism and cultural heritage at home and abroad.
Sara graduated from the Diocesan Classical Gymnasium in 2014 and enrolled at the Biotechnical Faculty in Ljubljana, where she studies agronomy. Students and teachers at the DCG are proud of Sara and compliment her warmly on winning the title. We wish her a successful fulfilment of her mission as a queen of wine, hoping she will spread the brand of quality Slovene wine and its tradition throughout Slovenia and abroad.