Information about free and democratic school Donum Felix

This page provides summarized information about our school in English.

Donum Felix (“Happy Gift”) is a private elementary and secondary free democratic school registered by the Czech Ministry of Education and providing elementary and secondary education from 1th to 9th grade of elementary school and four years of secondary school (to children 6/7 – 18/19 years old). The school is situated in the center of Kladno, 30 minutes by bus from Prague metro station Veleslavín. We are ready to accept English speaking children. Understanding and agreement of potential student’s family with the school concept and willingness of a pupil to gradually learn Czech language are the basic preconditions to start the accepting process.

The school language is Czech. We always have at least one native English speaking staff member and English is used by most of the other school community members, both kids and adults.

We are a member of the European Democratic Education Community (EUDEC). We cooperate with free democratic schools in Europe and our major partner schools are Sudbury Democratic School Jerusalem, Israel and Democratische school De Ruimte Soest, the Netherlands.

School concept

School values and approach can be characterised by following points:

• Full trust in children and their positive inner program and inner motivation
• Freedom and responsibility
• Mutual respect, quality of relationships and open communication
• Age mixing
• Natural learning and autonomy of learning
• Democratic decision making procedures where kids have the same voice as adults, common development and implementation of school rules
• Conflict as an opportunity for personal growth, Non Violent Communication (NVC), mediation
• Cooperation and mutual help

The mission of Donum Felix is to provide elementary and secondary education through natural learning based on trust and inner motivation.

Vision of the school „We are and we grow together“ express our main intention – to create a safe, authentic, democratic and inspirational environment for free development and learning of all school members – children, teachers, volunteers and external members. This is why we speak about Donum Felix as a learning school.

Our educational motto is: “I do not know where you go, however, I want to help you discover your unique journey and support you on it”. It is based on our major value – trust. We trust children to be competent people with their own „inner program“ for a unique saturated life. In a safe and inspirational environment, children can follow their personal learning needs and among others discover who they are, their unique talents and how to develop them, how to learn and how to live a meaningful life. In our school children are supported in taking responsibility for themselves and their decisions, which is the other side of the freedom coin.

If the children don’t lose their inner motivation, they learn by everything they do. A teacher can be a fellow in play and discovery, a partner in a project or can lead more traditional teaching activity depending on individual educational needs.

Speaking about the well-known schools similar to Donum Felix, we can be seen close to the model of Summerhill school in the UK with the exception that we aren’t a boarding school. However Sudbury schools also share some key elements with us. For more information on free democratic schools see a blog Freedom to Learn written by a child psychologist and a research professor on Boston College Peter Gray or our own articles published on a website Little Panda.

An organization of a day

School operates Monday – Friday 7:30 – 16:30. Formal education starts at 8:30 and ends depending on age of the child. Every day, there is a school club open for all children early in the morning and later in the afternoon. 

On Wednesdays, we often go for trips and excursions. Like all the activities in our school, participation in these trips isn’t compulsory.

Facility

The school facility located on Petra Bezruče 3087, Kladno, is a light building with a big garden. The building consists of different rooms including an atelier or music studio and a workroom. You can see a few pictures of the building here. We also use a local gym and a swimming pool.

Tuition

Tuition depends on the formal status of a student – whether or not he/she is registered for education in the Czech Republic and whether the school can receive a governmental support for this student. In such case the tuition for elementary education is described in detail in this document.

Annual tuition for secondary education students is CZK 60 000,- and can be paid in monthly installments of CZK 5000,-.

Food

Lunch is delivered to school on a daily basis and is supplied by an external  provider on subsidized costs depending on age (to see the current price, check https://www.donumfelix.cz/skola/organizacni-informace/). The food is of a standardized school quality, some days a vegetarian meal is provided. There’s an option of your own food arrangements.

Application

In case you are interested in exploring the possibility for your child to attend our elementary school, please, scroll down to registration forms. Filling a form means no obligation, it’s just an expression of interest and we’ll contact you based on the form.

Secondary school

In September 2020 we opened a secondary school with capacity up to 30 students. Our secondary school focuses on pedagogics, art and humanities. The secondary school applies the same principles as our elementery school. For more information about secondary school please write an e-mail to vladimir.dobes@donumfelix.cz or call Vladimír Dobeš (00420 603 178 642). In case you are interested in exploring the possibility for your child to attend our secondary school, please, scroll down to registration forms. Filling a form means no obligation, it’s just an expression of interest and we’ll contact you based on the form.

Elementary school form

Secondary school form