Vladimir Nazor Primary School Daruvar

Vladimir Nazor Primary School is located in the town of Daruvar, in Central Croatia, in Bjelovarsko-Bilogorska County.

We are continuing the tradition of primary education that began in our town in 1878. Nowadays, there are three primary schools in Daruvar: ours, Czech Primary School Jan Amos Komensky, mostly attended by young members of the numerous Czech minority, and Rudolf Steiner, a primary school for pupils with special needs.

 Vladimir Nazor Primary School Daruvar operates in two school buildings (Gajeva and Frankopanska Street) in the town, each with its kitchen and gym, and five village schools (Batinjani, Doljani, Ivanovo Polje, Gornji Daruvar and Gornji Sredjani). Upon completing lower primary schools (classes 1 to 4) in their villages all pupils are bussed to the Gajeva town school building for their upper primary education (classes 5 to 8).

The overall number of pupils is about 920, aged 6 to 14 and there are 75 teachers and 30 members of technical staff. The number of pupils has been slightly decreasing in the last five years. All village schools work in one shift only as well as upper classes in the town buildings. Only the lower classes (1 – 4) in the town school buildings attend lessons in two shifts.

Lower primary school pupils are taught in Croatian (the mother tongue), Maths, Science, Art, Music, Physical Education, English or German (foreign language) and Religious Education which is an optional subject. In the fifth class History, Geography and Technical Education start to be taught and pupils are offered German or English and Information Technology as optional subjects. The seventh and eighth class introduce students to Physics, Chemistry and Biology instead of Science. The school also offers additional classes in many subjects for advanced pupils and pupils with learning disabilities and slower academic progress as well as a number of extracurricular activities (knitting, sports groups, traditional crafts, beekeeping, pottery, journalism, theatrical activities, school choir, eco group and many more).

Each year our pupils take part in many competitions in their fields of interests on local, regional and national level and achieve reputable results.

The school also boasts our Pupils’ Cooperative Ginko, one of the first pupils’ cooperatives in independent Croatia. The Cooperative keeps bees, produces honey, organizes art classes and makes cards for different occasions.

Our school is a proud member of the UNICEF community of Schools without Violence.

One of the priorities of our school curriculum is charity work. We organize two charity events – A Golden Apple; visiting older citizens at the time of thanksgiving celebration (beginning of October) when we present them with packages of bread and fruit collected at school and  Let’s Learn to Be Good, at Easter time, when we organize workshops for pupils, parents and teachers who make Easter decorations of natural and recyclable materials and market sales, the proceeds of which are used to pay for school trips for pupils from lower income families. Our students also participate in other charity drives organized by Caritas, Red Cross and UNICEF.