Friday morning marked the end of a chapter for thousands of Victorian students who received their VCE results.
While the news are still fresh, with Neos Kosmos on the lookout for the state’s top Greek Australian students, we can confirm that at least three have made it to the list of high-achievers.
Simon Seddon-Fourlanos, a Buckley Park College student whose maternal grandparents hail from Lefkada, was among 43 students across the state offered a sought-after scholarship for achieving an ATAR of 99.9 or above.
The Melbourne Chancellor’s Scholarship recipient has been awarded a HECS-exempt place in an undergraduate course of his choice at Melbourne University, as well as a $5000 annual allowance throughout the degree.
With his eyes set on a biomedicine degree, Simon is over the moon with the news, and naturally so are his parents, Mary and Philip.
“We’re very pleased, we couldn’t believe it really, it all went well,” Ms Seddon-Fourlanos told Neos Kosmos.
While overwhelmed at first with the stellar score, his mother explains it is all thanks to the years of preparation and efforts Simon put in to succeed.
“He worked really hard and was persistent.
“We feel very proud of his achievements. It’s just a bit sad that my mum and dad – his yiayia and pappou – are no longer with us. They would have been very proud.”
The past weekend has also been one of celebration for the family and teachers of Theano-Christina Saltas, who obtained a perfect score of 50 in Modern Greek.
Theano-Christina’s teacher at South Oakleigh College, Dimitra Maniati, praises the student’s performance overall, considering as well that she arrived in Melbourne with her family from Thessaloniki just three years ago.
“A perfect score like this is really hard to get, one has to work diligently and have a plan,” Ms Maniati explains.
Another success in the community is credited to Stephanie Basdekis, who attended the Academy of Mary Immaculate and landed a perfect score of 50 in Studio Arts, earning as well an ATAR of 95.8.
Meanwhile, the Greek Community of Melbourne’s schools had a greater number of high achievers in Modern Greek compared to last year, with 30% of their VCE students getting scores of 40 or above and 69% of them achieving a study score above 30.
Greek Community of Melbourne schools' graduates (Balwyn campus), with teacher Afroditi Papandreou
VCE students at the Greek Community of Melbourne city campus schools, with teacher Maria Bakalidou
Program Coordinator of Ancient Greek at VCE level, Alexandros Yiannadakis, was equally pleased with the students’ performance in the subject, as 9 out of a cohort of 13 received final scores above 40.
A few hours after VCE and VCAL results were released on Friday morning, Minister for Education James Merlino congratulated more than 64,000 students across the state who completed their secondary schooling this year.
According to the announcement made by the Department, a total of 50,944 are VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) graduates and 13,901 students will graduate with their VCAL (Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning).