History of school
In the basis of industrialization of the Kysuce region there was a big concern Závody Presného Strojárstva (Factories of Exact Engineering) put into operation in Kysucké Nové Mesto, later called ZVL Kysucké Nové Mesto. To meet the needs of this company for qualified work force there was the Majstrovská škola strojnícka (Engineering foreman school) with the two-year evening courses established in the same year. In 1951 the school became independent and it became to be a state school with the daily form of study. It was named Vyššia priemyselná škola strojnícka v Kysuckom Novom Meste (Higher Technical Engineering School in Kysucké Nové Mesto). From this moment the history of our school becomes.
The beginnings were difficult. The school was materially supported by the parent company. The enthusiasm of the pedagogues, their high proficiency, dedication, passion for their work, close co-operation with the big engineering companies in its surroundings changed the school into one of the most important schools in the branch of the engineering education. The interest to study at the school was also in the other Slovak regions. Sequentially there were educated specialists in whole Central Slovak region and that is the reason why a boarding-house was also added to the school. The fact that the school-leavers function in important management positions in large companies and they also worked as ministers of Slovak government. In 1957 the school changed its name to Stredná priemyselná škola v Kysuckom Novom Meste (Secondary Technical School in Kysucké Nové Mesto). Thanks to the increasing interest in the studies at the school it needed larger area and more rooms. It was moved to already existing buildings in the town more times, but these were not always suitable for the needs of modern education. As a result there was a foundation stone laid for the construction of the new complex areal in Nábrežná Street in 1967.
The students moved to this areal in 1977, while the whole complex was finished in 1986. Nowadays it consists of the boarding school building with the capacity of 130 beds, school canteen with the kitchen with the possibility to cook 500 meals a day, two gymnasiums, the general education classes building, the vocational education classes building, the building of professional workshop rooms, the technical information centre building, and a building with two school flats. Individual objects are connected with each other with the connecting corridors. They create one whole where everything is optimized for the maximal comfort in the realisation of educational process.
The change of legislation in 2008 caused that the school changed its name to Spojená škola. Conected schools, Stredná priemyselná škola (Secondary Vocational School) and Obchodná akadémia (Business Academy), are its branches. The school adapted the education of young people to the changing conditions and requirements of the companies so that our school-leavers were exercisable on the labour market in the region. As the new industries were developing we responded flexibly on the lack of qualified specialists by the modification of the curriculum. As a result we had enough students who were able to employ and at the same time we had enough finance for the school complex operation. In 1984 we opened new field of study Automation Technology, which was later on transferred to the field of study Electrotechnics with the focus on electronic computer systems. In 1993 we opened new field of study Technical and Information Services, mainly for girls. As a reaction to the requirements of the companies to educate specialists for the area of the management of the hydraulic and pneumatic systems, programming PLC devices and CNC machines we opened a new field of study Mechatronics in 1995. In the school year 1998 there was a new school established – The Business Academy. In 2001 we started the education in the field of study Technical Lyceum. Since 2009 as one of the 6 schools in Slovakia we have experimentally been verifying two new fields of study: Logistics and Information and Network Technologies.
The school has got a good material-technical equipment for teaching electrical, economic and engineering subjects. Thirteen classrooms for teaching ICT are available forstudents. In two of them programming of single chip microcomputers based on the C language is primarily taught. One classroom is used for FPGA programming teaching. In three classrooms, there is a set of devices (routers, schwitche, wifi AP) for computer networks and the Cisco Academy NetAcad teaching. One of the classrooms is used for programming CNC machines.
Furthermore, the school has two laboratories for teaching foreign languages, two laboratories for teaching electrical measurements, a laboratory of sensors and robots programming, a laboratory of programming PLC systems from Siemens, a laboratory of measurement and control in engineering.
On their practice lessons, students work on the design of production and assembly of printed circuit board in an electrical installation workshop for teaching electronics, in a locksmith's workshop, milling workshop, turning and welding workshop.
For teaching of physical education, there are two gyms, fitness and playground with artificial grass, measuring 40x20 m.
The school is connected to the Internet by optical line and manages its own servers as mail server, file server, web server and e-learning server, too.
In the afternoons, students work in 37 circles of interest with different orientation as for example learning English and conversation at English language, programming circle, webdesign circle, plc systems programming circle.
The school pays particular attention to the improvement of educational process, its connection with life. We try to introduce the most modern teaching methods and forms that go hand in hand with the modernization of teaching resources and application of ICT. This trend is extremely difficult for funds which the school hasn´t got enough.
Therefore, we are increasingly involved in various projects, especially in large projects funded by the European Union and the state budget.
We joined the project called Socrates in the year 2001. Technish Institut St Jozef in Geeli in Belgium and Nurminarvan Ammattioppilaitos in Perttule in Finland, which have similar specialisation as our school does, were our partner schools.We were working on the project for 3 years. Its aim was to start long-lasting cooperation with national and international companies on a new level of quality and to prepare students for specialised work and new technologies on the united European market. We compared individual studying programmes, school equipment, students´ knowledge as well as we motivated students to use communication technologies and to begin cooperation on the international level, get know a different culture, work of municipality and also family background.
In the year 2004 we were able to construct a classroom for information and communication technologies as an educational and training centre thank to PHARE financial support.
The project called „Educating teachers in maintenance and managing of automatized operation systems“ which was financially supported by European social fund enabled to our 4 teachers of specialised subjects and 1 teacher of foreign languages to participate in specialised courses in France in Lycée de ľ Essouriau in Paris in the area of managing and operation systems and mechatronics systems. After that studying materials were designed and they were reflected in the educational process.
New studying texts were written for students of mechatronics in 2006 as a part of the project „Innovations in technical education“ supported by European social fund.
Regional operational system EU supported our project „Building modification- raising technical and energy standard of Spojená škola in Kysucké Nové Mesto , a large part of our school was renewed, old windows were changed for new ones and 3 classrooms for information and communication technologies were built up.
We were given specialised tools and equipment by taking part in the project „Implementation of the new studying branch Information and Net technologies“, 6 teachers were trained for the field of information and communication technologies for experimental testing of a new studying branch: Information and communication technologies.
We have been working on the project „Increasing effectivity of school educational programmes at Spojená škola in Kysucké Nové Mesto“ since the year 2010. This project was supported by ESF. On the basis of the labour market requirements, analysis of labour market and school opportunities we are innovating school educational programmes especially in the studying branches Electrotechnics focusing on electronic computer systems and Logistics. Our teachers are creating learning texts and experimental tests in 28 subjects. They are going to be published as books and later also as courses on our elearning server so students can study from home.