The old II. Primary School was
built in 1912 in the centre of town. During the II. World War the building was
used as a military hospital. After the war the school work started and at first
it was on the school yard but later they moved to the classrooms.
During the first post-war years
there were two primary schools in Celje. The school district was very variegated
as it included many streets and was attended even by those children from Celje's
lodge (Celjska koča) and Rock Cellar (Skalna klet).
In the school building there were many different schools for a short time:
before the war there was a two-year commercial school, after the war there was
an evening technical school, vocational school, teachers' training college and
later the Pedagogical school centre as well as the department of the College of
Education from Maribor. The place became very crowded and because the lack of
space a tendency for building new places grew stronger.
There was a manual within the teachers' training college that qualified young
teachers-to-be for their future profession and the teachers of II. Primary
School Celje gave them valuable methodical directions by letting them attend at
their lectures as occasional students. The young teachers took the practical
part of their professional exam.
The teachers from wider region of Celje exchanged their pedagogical experiences
at the professional working groups.
Our building with the surface of 4000m was planned to be built in 1972 when the
foundation stone was laid on the area by a student from our school. The first
name was "The School on Island" and in 1974 it was renamed from II. Primary
school to "The Slavko Šlander Primary School" when another building was added.
The old building was then left to the needs of secondary schools in Celje.
At the new school a dimension of work was expanded by organising school
nutrition and later also a school dentist dispensary. There were 31 employees at
the old II. Primary School and 46 employees at the new one. The number of
students rose from 416 to 680. The school work began in the unfinished building.
By the end of November 1974 the school was inaugurated.
The school was one of the most modern schools of that time: it introduced the
cabinet lessons, new teaching methods, extended guardianship of younger pupils
and school saving service.
The name "The Slavko Šlander Primary school" was changed to "II. Primary School
Celje" in 1991 by the town council.
In the school year 1999/2000 we were one of the first schools which were
included into a new educational programme of the 9-year primary school.
The first headmistress was Vera Strehovec (1974 - 1982) succeeded by the
headmaster Ivan Senegačnik (1982 - 1990) and since 1990 the headmaster has been
Igor Topole.
An interesting thing: on the 10th anniversary the Municipal educational
community donated to the school the first computer which was a modest beginning
in the field of the computer science.