The Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Železný Brod celebrates its 105th anniversary in 2025. This first purely Czech glass school operating in our territory and the largest glass school in Europe, founded by the Liberec Region, offers a wide range of studies in one place, including accommodation in its own Youth Home.

First of all, it was consciously founded as the first vocational glass school in the newly established Czechoslovak Republic in 1920 with the task “to prepare pupils for independent work in the art glass industry and to give them at the same time a basic business education for independent entrepreneurship”.

Under one roof, the school offers two four-year diploma courses, a glass-design course and a chemical-technological course. The two art and two technical courses with a total of ten vocational fields form a unique combination of theory and practice, and technical background and artistic background.

The school has its own glassworks and covers almost all hot and cold techniques of artistic glass processing.

Pupils in the oldest Glass Design course study in six glass specialisations, Cutting and Fused Sculpture, Metallurgical Glass Forming, Painting and Decor, Engraved and Relief Glass, Technically Decorative Glass and Glass Figure Design and Jewellery, Jewellery and Fashion Accessories Design, from the very first year. The school's domain is primarily the two traditional glassmaking disciplines taught, which originated in Železný Brod from the artists and teachers of the school, Brycht's Železný Brod glass figurines and the maintained legacy of fused glass sculptures by Jaroslava Brychtová and Stanislav Libenský.

Students of the youngest branch of Product Design work with all materials, thanks to this they have set up a wide cooperation in professional companies of the region with the latest technologies. The topics related to product, packaging, graphic, as well as interior and exterior design that students encounter during their studies evolve in parallel with the overall direction of contemporary design.

Thus, the students of Applied Chemistry with its four specializations, Analytical Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Substances, Environmental Protection and now Nanotechnology and Polymers, and the students of Glass and Silicate Technology, have, under one roof, not only their modern laboratories but also the practical processes of glass processing at their disposal, which is why, in our glass school, we apply the theory to practice and practice to theory. Our school is the only one in the Liberec region where it is possible to study both these specific disciplines. By combining all four disciplines and the professional teachers working in one school, a unique environment for the upcoming field of Glass and Silicate Restoration is created.

The school is responding to the increased need for the use of digital technology in teaching, particularly computer graphics, 2D and 3D visualization. Every year, students participate in professional practices in companies, glass workshops and present their school work at prestigious exhibitions, fairs and design competitions in the Czech Republic and abroad. In this area, the school has long achieved considerable success (Student Design, Master of Crystal, Made in Jablonec, Craft and Art in Glass Nový Bor, Design-S Brno, Talente Munich, Frauenau Summer School, Student Design Award, EDUCA EXPO 2024, T-PROFI, MOBITEX 2025 Brno). It boasts many distinguished alumni, teachers and school directors. It has a high employability rate of graduates on the labour market and in the continuation at universities (VŠCHT, VŠUP, TUL, UP, UK, UJEP). The school has facultative cooperation or memoranda with many partners (Preciosa, Elmarco, Detesk, Crytur, Banasglass, Steinel, Trevos, Dias, Polpur, Temperatior, Desko, Moser, GDS Technology, ACL Holding, Sklo Suchánek, TopTec, Sklopísek Střeleč, INTERIER-O, P 46, RIA REALITY and others).

The school and the town of Železný Brod annually co-organize the traditional Glass Town Fair and the Summer Glass Workshop Symposium with international participation of glass artists. On the third weekend in September, the school building belongs to a student demonstration of crafts with workshops for children and adults. Of course, the school is also involved in the Crystal Valley events and participation in Made in Jablonec shows.

The glass school is a traditional supplier of a number of important awards designed by students (Golden Crown, Monument of the Year, Karel Hubáček Award for Architecture, Czech Academy of Visual Arts Prague, EDUCA, POKOS).

The school traditionally marks its anniversary by publishing a printed publication about its activities after five years, in the school year 2025/26, entitled SKLANDA 105. The publication is accompanied by several student exhibitions. The celebration starts with an autumn exhibition of the best works in the Regional Gallery Liberec. At the beginning of 2026, a thematic exhibition at the Roztoky u Prahy Museum will follow with the pupils' artistic reactions in a single assignment to the work of the important painter Zdenka Braunerová.

The annual exhibition of pupils' work in the school building during the main summer holidays and also as part of the Glass Town Festival, makes new additions of student art artefacts available to visitors. Selected works are available for purchase in the school shop.