← Back to homeGimnazija Bežigrad
Ljubljana, Slovenia · est. 1908 · State
Illustration · Ljubljana
Gimnazija Bežigrad in Ljubljana is the oldest IB school in Slovenia and one of the oldest in this part of Europe: the diploma has been taught here since September 1990, when the first group of twenty Slovene students was admitted to it, and from 1993 the school began admitting foreign students to two programmes at once - the middle years for Grades 9 and 10 and the diploma for Grades 11 and 12. The international section is part of a large gimnazija: the school has 1 101 students in 42 classes in all, and 212 of them are on the IB programmes, so the international part is noticeably smaller than the school as a whole. The 1936 building was designed by Emil Navinšek, and it was the first school in the world without corridors; a 1991 wing, a 1995 sports complex and a new 2026 wing with eleven classrooms, a large dance hall and an amphitheatre have been added to it. The library occupies 600 square metres, holds more than 30 000 items and is open until five in the evening, and the choice of clubs is collected in a catalogue of almost sixty pages - from astronomy and biology to Model United Nations, the school improvisation league and a podcast. The international section staff are named person by person, 55 teachers with their subjects, and among them Russian is offered as a language A; separately and free of charge the school prepares students for the German language diploma DSD II, taught by a teacher who comes over from Germany. Admission is closed and narrow on both sides: the Slovene door requires a completed second year of a Slovene secondary school and a high mark in Slovene, Italian or Hungarian as a mother tongue, while the international door is open only to the children of official representatives of their country in Slovenia, the children of Slovene diplomats and Slovene citizens who have studied abroad for at least four years.
Key facts
Programmes
IB · MYP, DP · National programme
Languages of instruction
English, Slovene
Languages taught
Russian, German
About the fees There are no sums in euros anywhere on the site. Study through the Slovene door is described as a state programme, and the school writes nothing about a fee for it. For the international door a fee is mentioned, but without a figure: in June parents submit an application and pay a registration fee, and the fee is non-refundable. Nowhere across the pages of the international school section, the enrolment page, the "Prijava" page, the frequently asked questions and the invitation attached to the additional intake is there a single sum. The school does not publish the amount of the non-refundable registration fee.
Admissions The school has two different doors into the IB programmes, and their conditions do not coincide. The Slovene door, diploma programme: "Pogoji za vpis: starost od 16 do 17 let; v šolskem letu 2026/27 končan drugi letnik srednje šole (štiriletni program) z najmanj prav dobrim splošnim učnim uspehom; najmanj prav dober učni uspeh iz predmetov slovenščina ali italijanščina ali madžarščina kot materni jezik, angleščina in matematika; aktivno vključevanje v dejavnosti na področju kulture in športa ter udeležba na različnih tekmovanjih (državnih, olimpijadah) iz znanja matematike, jezikov, naravoslovja, računalništva in podobno". The intake is 22 people a year, the application goes on a special form by registered post, and each candidate submits only one application and only to one school in the country with this programme; the final choice follows a personal interview in April, and the decision comes in May. An additional intake for 2026/27, announced at the end of August, named one place and this time required only "prav dober uspeh in prav dobre ocene iz predmetov slovenščina, angleščina in matematika", without Italian and Hungarian. The international door, middle years programmes 4-5 and the diploma: "Students are admitted into the programme for the period of one academic year on the following conditions: As foreign citizens whose parents have come to work as their home country's representatives in Slovenia. As children of Slovene diplomats who have spent at least four years abroad; If there are available places, the school also admits Slovene citizens who attended school abroad for at least four years". There is no open category here, and a place is given for one school year at a time. Documents: a copy of the birth certificate or passport, copies of the last final report and the current report, a recommendation from the present school, an official document on the parent's place of work in Slovenia, an address in Slovenia and a photograph. There is no entrance examination.
Stages and year groups Grades Grades 9-12 (MYP 4-5, DP); the school as a whole - years 1-4 of the gimnazija. The international section runs only the last two years of the middle years programme and the diploma programme: middle years 4 and 5 are Grades 9 and 10, and the diploma programme is Grades 11 and 12. Many students arrive in the middle years after the first three years of the same programme at the Danila Kumar school in Ljubljana. The school as a whole is a four-year gimnazija with two state programmes besides the international ones. The school's own table: the gimnazija - 28 classes and 803 students, the sports gimnazija - 4 classes and 86 students, the international matura - 6 classes and 125 students, the international school - 4 classes and 87 students.
Address Peričeva 4, 1000 Ljubljana
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · MYP, DP · authorised programmeThe school dates its programmes differently from the way they stand in the organisation's record. According to the "Who we are" page the diploma was introduced in September 1990, and the school began admitting foreign students to both programmes - the middle years and the diploma - in 1993; the Slovene page introducing the school puts the first opportunity to study the international matura programme at 1990 and adds that the international school was founded two years later. The school also gives its year of foundation as two different figures: the Slovene history traces it to 1908, when a German gimnazija was founded, while the English page traces it to 1936, when two boys' high schools merged and moved into the present building ("established in 1936, when two boys' high schools merged").
school is in an official registryconfirmed by a school document, by membership or by taking part in a networkclaimed by the school, no confirmation, not counted in the scoreGuide to all organisations → What stands behind each entry
IBInternational Baccalaureate
A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. At this school: MYP (ages 11-16), DP (ages 16-19). MYP is the middle stage, ages 11 to 16. There are no exams here either; at the end an optional electronic assessment of pupils' work is possible. DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →National programme
The state school programme of the country the school stands in: it is set by that country's ministry of education, which also licenses the school and awards the leaving certificate. That certificate is used for entry to local universities, and abroad it is matched to the local one.
What this means for this school. This entry does not count towards the score, and that is deliberate. Every lawful school in a country works to the national programme, so on its own it tells one school apart from no other - unlike the French, German or Russian programmes, which are carried abroad and confirmed by the register of their organisation. We show it because a parent needs to know what programme their child is taught and what certificate the child will get. Counting it would lift the whole ranking at once and still tell nobody apart.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
Exam results The school publishes its results in words, without an average score. The outcome of the 2026 diploma programme: fifty-seven full diploma graduates scored more than 24 points, and thirteen of them 40 or above ("57 dijakov, ki so opravljali celotno diplomo, je doseglo več kot 24 točk, od tega jih je 13 doseglo 40 točk ali več"). For 2024/25 the school gives a different count on its achievements page: "V mednarodni maturi je bilo od skupno 21 maturantov 11 zlatih, vse točke je dosegel en dijak", for 2023/24 - 13 golds out of 19 graduates and two with a full score, for 2022/23 - 18 golds out of 22. The school does not name the average diploma programme score for any year. On the state matura for 2024/25: of 211 candidates 210 passed, with an average score of 25.5 against a Slovene average of 20.3 for general gimnazijas, 39 golds and two with a full score.
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
✓Sports hall
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
✓Theatre or assembly hall
✓Library
✓Catering
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Campus: The school received its building behind Bežigrad in 1936: the architect Emil Navinšek designed the first school building in the world without corridors. In 1991, because of overcrowding, an extension was opened that made it possible to teach in the mornings only, in 1995 the school received a new sports complex, and in 2026 another extension brought eleven classrooms, three staff rooms, a large dance hall and an amphitheatre hall. The library on the ground floor occupies 600 square metres and has a reading room with 30 places and computer places for work on seminar and research papers; the collection is more than 30 000 items arranged by the universal decimal classification, plus an extensive collection of domestic and foreign periodicals, and the library is a full member of the COBISS system and open from Monday to Thursday from 7:00 to 17:00. There is an information and communication technology centre. Meals are cooked every day, lunch is after lessons, and there are drinking fountains with cold and hot water in the corridors. Every student has a locker, and the school has a guarded covered and open bicycle park; the railway station and the main bus station are 600 metres away, with city transport stops and city bike hire stations nearby.
Clubs and activities (40): Astronomy · Biology · Introduction to artificial intelligence · Financial mathematics and statistics · Mathematics in international competitions · Go · Strategic thinking, de Bono method · Reading club I · Reading club II · Reading group · German reading group · German · Literature club · Psychology · Puppetry with a performance · Drama, "Odrska ustvarjalnica" · English Drama Club · ŠILA school improvisation league · Model United Nations · Choir · Orchestra · Art and photography · Eco-school student section · "Inclusive school" group · Conversation club · Creative club · Volleyball · Inter-class sports competitions · Clothes swap · Induction tutoring · Subject tutoring · Free optional Chinese course · School newspaper "Vtikač" · "The Bežipod" podcast · Multi-sport · Astronomy and science camp · Slovene language and drama camp · DSD camp · DSD conversation course · DSD II exam preparation
Teaching staff from the school's official website
✓Teachers listed by namepublished
✓Teacher qualifications
✓Number of teachers55
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
What the listings show: The international section staff are set out in a table with subjects and addresses: 55 teachers. Among them are the ATL coordinator Timotej Klopčič, the theory of knowledge teachers Tamara Bosnič, Katja Lah Majkić, Marko Štempihar and William Tomford, DP Russian - Žanna Korošec, DP Slovene A - Katja Lah Majkić and Mojca Osvald, and the head of the library Sabina Usenik.
55 named teachers in the international section and 84 named teachers across the school as a whole. Each one has a subject and a stage listed - for example "MYP Mathematics, DP Mathematics AA SL, AI SL" or "DP Chemistry HL". The school does not publish its student-teacher ratio or its class sizes, but by its own table the 212 students on the IB programmes are spread across 10 classes.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
·CCTVnot stated on the website
·Security staffnot stated on the website
·Access controlnot stated on the website
·Nurse or medical roomnot stated on the website
✓CounsellorThe gimnazija's counselling service is named person by person: Marija Dominko Gabor, a psychologist specialising in school psychology, Andreja Pavlovčič, who holds a master's degree in social pedagogy, Pia Krajnc, a social work specialist, and Karin Turk, who holds a master's degree in psychology and teaches psychology. The international section has a service of its own - International School Advisory, dr. Darinka Novak Jerman, with consultation four days a week by timetable. The service itself lists what it works on: support with learning difficulties and with organising study, psychosocial help with personal difficulties, stress and anxiety, careers guidance, work with parents, support for students with special needs and agreeing accommodations, and preventive sessions on mental health, relationships, study and addiction.
✓Child protection policyThe school publishes a video surveillance policy on a page of its own, as well as a privacy statement, terms of use and an accessibility statement; rules and forms are collected in a separate section.
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
Reviews
No reviews yet. The community rating counts towards the score once a school has five verified reviews - until then we do not show a zero, so as not to mislead.
Criteria breakdown criterion weight in brackets
Academics and programmes (16%)88 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data80 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data65 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)85 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data90 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data80 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 Value for money (6%) scored at the median70 "Scored on disclosed data" stands where we count only what the school has written about itself on its own site: exams and destinations, safety and wellbeing, teaching staff, facilities, clubs and activities. A low score here means the school does not write about this, not that the school does not have it: a school with good security and a sparse site will score low. A school can fill in its profile, and the score will be counted again.
The score is counted from 7 of the 9 criteria.Only those with checkable data count: programmes and accreditations from official registers, the fee from a published price list. Where it says "scored on the median", the school has no data and the middle of the list is put in its place, so that a gap gives no advantage. Admissions, teaching staff and reviews come in as their data arrives.
The full methodology → Similar schools in the country