The history of the Súkromná základná umelecká škola in Kláštor pod Znievom began in 2007, the year the Ministry of Education entered the school in the register of schools and school facilities. From the outset it set out to create a place where children and young people discover their talent, develop their creativity, and find a relationship with the arts.
The school began teaching in earnest in 2008 under its first head, Mgr. Vladimír Smik, who stood at its founding and led it through those first years. It had no building of its own then—it began in rented premises in the primary school.
Even in those early days the school grew through its satellite sites. They carried arts education to children beyond Kláštor pod Znievom itself, and the school gradually found its place across the wider region.
Mgr. Zita Ličková succeeded Mgr. Vladimír Smik as head, and was also the school's first founder. Her tenure marks a significant chapter in its development: with personal commitment, dedication, and perseverance she helped build the school, widen what it offered, and create the conditions in which its pupils could learn an art. Her name remains inseparable from its history.
A further chapter opened when Ing. Ivana Ličková became the school's founder, and the school continued along its path, developing arts education for children and young people.
The network of satellite sites widened over the years, and the school brought arts education to children in a number of villages across the region. Its sites include Martin, Podhradie, Benice, Blatnica, Žabokreky, Turčianska Štiavnička, Príbovce, Košťany nad Turcom, Ďanová, and Necpaly.
The year 2024 brought a considerable milestone: the school moved into the historic building at A. Moyzesa 39. It is a two-storey Baroque structure on an L-shaped plan, formed in 1822 by joining two older Baroque buildings, and a national cultural monument since 1988. It is the first of the three buildings used by the first Slovak Catholic gymnasium founded at Kláštor pod Znievom in 1869 under its director Martin Čulen. The gymnasium came to occupy three buildings in the village—the second is today the Martin Čulen memorial room, and the third is the primary school. The gymnasium was closed in 1874; in its five years, 669 pupils passed through it, drawn from across Slovakia and mostly from poor families.
The move therefore gave the school not only a new home but a symbolic joining of past and present. In rooms bound up with the history of Slovak education, there is now music and the laughter of children, and space for a new generation to create.
Today the school has its seat at A. Moyzesa 39 in Kláštor pod Znievom, offering children and young people the chance to develop their talent in music, art and design, dance, and drama. Together with its satellite sites, it teaches children from a number of villages in the region.
Competitions, showcases, performances, and arts events are inseparable from the life of the school. Its pupils represent it regularly and place well. Behind every success lie their talent, diligence, and persistence—and with them the daily work of the teaching staff and the support of parents.
The school has come a long way since 2007. What began as a small school has become one with a history of its own, a tradition, a network of satellite sites, and a great many successful pupils.
We look to the future with the same enthusiasm that attended the school's beginnings, because its greatest asset was never the buildings or the rooms, but the people—pupils, teachers, parents, and everyone whose work and heart help to write its story.