Twenty years ago, you might have felt a little out of place at one of Melbourne’s booming Greek high schools if your last name ended in Smith or Jones.
Most first generation Greek Australians were sent to these schools to maintain their culture, faith, language, and traditions, and of course mingle with students who were brought up with the same mentality.

“They’re more discerning about education, they ask more questions and they’re not just prepared to go to the closest school.” – Dr Vivianne Nikou, principal Alphington Grammar

While education was a priority for all of these schools, there was enough emphasis on tradition and culture to make these schools starkly different from your everyday government school.

That defined them for decades, but now, their identity is starkly different.

Their focus is now on delivering a multicultural and global syllabus that prepares their students to enter a world quite different from what their parents met when graduating.

For many schools, the change came when they acknowledged they needed a complete re-branding.

Both St John’s Greek Orthodox College and Oakleigh Greek Orthodox School dropped the ‘Greek Orthodox’ part of their name and in turn started marketing themselves as a school open to all.

The change was a direct reaction to dwindling enrolments.

Principal of Oakleigh Grammar Mark Robertson says the school could have benefited more if the decision to change tack came earlier.

“There’s no doubt that if those changes had come in five years earlier then we’d be in an even stronger position now,” he tells Neos Kosmos.

“Back 10 years ago it was primarily a Greek Orthodox background [student] population and today at Oakleigh Grammar we have close to 25 different backgrounds represented in the school.”

In his four years as principal, he’s seen enrolments jump up from 445 to 520. The school has worked hard teaching its students how to navigate a truly global community.

“We’ve embraced internationalism as the theme of the school, our global outlook is extensive, we’re preparing people for a global world, not a microscopic view of a small community,” he says.

“The parents themselves are embracing diversity and the reason for that is that their children will be graduating into a very multicultural, diverse society.”

Dr Vivianne Nikou, principal of Alphington Grammar, says parents have become much more savvy in choosing their children’s schools, after they themselves didn’t get much say in the matter.

“They’re more discerning about education, they ask more questions and they’re not just prepared to go to the closest school,” she tells Neos Kosmos.

“They are interested in results.”

Parents’ changing concerns also forced many schools to lift their game. St Johns College was struggling to keep itself in vogue with Greek Australian parents after its results weren’t strong.

“Three years ago the school was 430th of the 530 schools in Victoria in VCE results, but in three years we’ve managed to raise it to the top 100,” principal Harry Ladopoulos tells Neos Kosmos.

“This is rebuilding trust in the school.”

Mr Ladopoulos also believes the change in student population is down to the fact that the Greek community itself is changing.

Gone are the days that the college was surrounded by Greek residents.

“These schools used to be held up by the Greek population that was in the area,” he says.

“Now the children of these parents have moved to different areas and now we’re seeing that our students aren’t just from Preston or Northcote, they’re from Doncaster, Keilor East, from all areas.”

Alphington Grammar principal, Vivianne Nikou has also seen the shift first hand, and says the school has benefited a lot from the influx of different cultures.

“40 per cent of the students are not Greek. They’ve made a conscious decision to come to a school like this,” she says.

“It automatically changes the flavour of the school. They have chosen it because of the values and the love of a multicultural school.”

Of the Greek students attending St Johns, Oakleigh Grammar and Alphington Grammar teach a student population where more than 90 per cent of its students have a language background other than English.

Of the 90 per cent, around 70 per cent are still Greek, showing that the schools have been able to keep Greek students coming back in recent years.

Those numbers are also buoyed by a changing demographic in the Greek community.

Thanks to an influx of newly arrived Greek migrants hoping to escape the economic crisis, lots of Greek schools have been welcoming migrant students from Greece.

The Greek schools in Melbourne have proven the best option to integrate newly arrived children into a new life in a new country while still keeping traditions and language alive.

All three Melbourne Greek schools mentioned in this article have opened their doors to newly arrived Greek students.

Oakleigh Grammar has taken in around 60 newly arrived students since 2009, the largest of any Greek School in Melbourne.

The school’s board says it was a conscious decision to offer free tuition to newly arrived Greek’s for the first year to help the families through the major transition.

While the numbers of newly arrived Greek students aren’t at the highs they were in 2009 (only seven new students are enrolled for this year at Oakleigh Grammar), the schools have made huge advances in building the infrastructure to deal with migrant students.

St John’s is embarking on a 10-year building master plan to renew its facilities, while Alphington Grammar takes its year 9 and 10 students overseas to Asia and Europe for an international trek.

What these projects hope to achieve, say their principals, is to keep their schools competitive and globally minded in an ever changing Australia.