The competition for Cankar's prize
Cankar's competition is one of the oldest competitions in Slovenia. It’s named after aSlovenian writer Ivan Cankar. The Scandal in St. Florian’s Valley and On the Hill are just two of his best writings. The competition started early in 1976. The ‘inventors’ of the Cankar’s competition were Alenka Kozinc and Pavle Vozlič. At first there was only one rank of the competition (the national competition). Pupils who competed in this competition were in 8th grade of elementary school (9th graders nowadays) or they were in high school.
Every year there's a Cankar's competition on our school in December. Every year there's a different theme. To be able to compete you have to read a book by a Slovenian writer. You get instructions and then you write an essay. Slovenian language teachers assess it and if the essay achieves nationally accepted critera, you can rank on a higher level of competition.
This year’s theme for eighth and ninth graders of primary school was a novel Under the free sun (Pod svobodnim soncem). It was written by a Slovenian writer Fran Saleški Finžgar. It talks about Slovenian nation's history, love and war. A young soldier Iztok went to Byzantium to learn how to fight better in a war. There he met lots of new people and also the love of his life, Irena. After many problems and obstructions Iztok and Irena are finally able to be together and live happily.
The Vega's competition
In our school will soon be a competition called the Vega's competition. Its prize is named after a well known Jurij Vega and it's one of the oldest competitons that was inspired by knowing any of the subjects from school,because it was the first regional competition that started back in the year of 1964/1965. At first, only pupils in the 8th grade were alowed to compete in the national competiton (when there were only eight grades in elementary school). But from the year of 1980/1981 7th grades were allowed to enter the nationals as well,and from the year of 2007/2008 there could also compeat all the last three grades, which includes 7th,8th and also 9th grade of elementary school.
The competition's intention is to spread the knowledge of mathematics to the students and encourage them to use logics (while at it) and make maths more popular and most of all, to have fun doing it. But what encourages the students the most is the prize, which can be either a bronze medal in the school competition, silver in the regional competition and students can also earn the golden prize if their score is in the top third of the students who made it to the regional competiton and some lucky students also have a chance of winning some other practical prizes they can use in everyday life.
The competition's intention is to spread the knowledge of mathematics to the students and encourage them to use logics (while at it) and make maths more popular and most of all, to have fun doing it. But what encourages the students the most is the prize, which can be either a bronze medal in the school competition, silver in the regional competition and students can also earn the golden prize if their score is in the top third of the students who made it to the regional competiton and some lucky students also have a chance of winning some other practical prizes they can use in everyday life.