Elementary Nine Year Boarding School for the Visually Impaired in Bratislava, 1961
United Boarding School for Visually Impaired Children in Karlova Ves on the Svrcia ulica 6 street is the successor of the oldest school for visually impaired children in Slovakia which began its operation in unsuitable premises in Svätojánske Spa in Liptov (1953).
Its regular functioning on Svrčia street began on 24 September 1961 with the number of 144 students.
The school received ist first name Elementary Nine Year Boarding School for Visually Impaired under the Act no. 186/1960 Coll. on the system of education which was in force until 31 August 1984.
From 1 September 1984 the school changed its name to Primary boarding school for the visually impaired children and part of it officially became also the Special boarding school for the visually impaired children.
In 1991 there was added another part of school which was Special educational counseling for PBS for the visually impaired children and in 1992 Primary art school for the visually impaired children. In school year 1992/93 the school began to educate also totally blind students and thus there were created other branches:
Primary boarding school for visually impaired students
Special boarding school for visually impaired students
Special school for purblind
The school changed its name to Primary boarding school for purblind and visually impaired students. In 2004 there has been added Special nursery boarding school for the purblind and visually impaired children. Since the last amendment of the Act in 2008 the school bears the name United Boarding School with these branches:
Primary boarding school for students with visual impairments
Special primary school for students with visual impairment (variants A and B)
Special nursery school for children with visual impairments
Centre of special educational counseling
PaedDr. Jozef Šimko is the headmaster of the school Since 1 September 1991.
A few interesting things about the teaching of geography. Strong position during geography lessons have typhlo-maps which help to shape ideas about spatial phenomena and their relationship. The students meet geography classes already in the third year of their study during natural history lessons in order to come to an understanding of the landscape and the environment. They begin to navigate on the map Slovakia and look for the most obvious locations on the map. This is the way which helps them to understand relationship and proportion of the embossed symbols. The huge help is also represented by relief maps and globe through which they obtain an overview of the continents, oceans, seas and situation on Earth. Relief globes are often large and rarely available outside of the classroom. The other illustrations are frequently travel books, radio plays, television shows about nature and audio books.
The students are mostly interested in which climate zone the country is located, the population, rivers, mountains, cities, etc. Teachers produce simple maps on the paper on which students complement rivers, cities or mountains. School in nature is also a significant addition during which students get to know the warmer southern side and colder northern side of the forest. They can also judge the distance using echo voice.
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