Choosing Greek at VCE level

A diverse and valuable experience for every student

In recent years, students from early primary school level up until VCE level have embraced the educational programs offered by the Greek Community of Melbourne, which continues to offer programs that strengthen and promote the quality of teaching and learning practices, hence ensuring high-level outcomes in the teaching of the Greek language.

During this period, the Greek Community of Melbourne has expanded its education jurisdiction, which now includes: creative drama, Ancient Greek for secondary students, Greek language courses for adults and advanced Greek for both primary and secondary students who have Greek as their primary language.

The language and culture programs offered by the Greek Community of Melbourne continuously evolve in order to facilitate quality improvement in language education.

Such new initiatives promote the educational, cognitive, social and other benefits of learning the Greek language. With the introduction and development of new curriculum material, the new education programs aim to further develop the critical and analytical thinking of the students in a flexible learning environment.

The professional learning of the teaching staff is a priority for the Greek Community in order to achieve and to further enhance the quality of teaching.

Initiatives such as introducing creative drama techniques and activities, the use of technology in the teaching of the Greek language and VCE workshops for teachers new to languages and returning languages teachers are some of the ongoing professional learning programs that develop understandings of inter-cultural language learning and curriculum design.

This year’s VCE results reflect and are proof that the educational initiatives the educators have selected are not only successful but also facilitate in providing quality language programs. Three of the 2015 VCE class students excelled in the subject of Modern Greek with a 41 and over; one student achieved a score of 46, the third-highest score in Victoria. Konstantina Karavas, Dimitris Tomazos and Daphne Saropoulou must be especially commended for their outstanding results.

In comparison to the 2014 VCE results, in the highest score band (40-50), as with the results in the medium score band (33-39), the scores of the Greek Community of Melbourne schools have increased by an impressive 54 per cent, whereas the results in the lower score band (20-33) decreased by 23 per cent.

Also notable are the outstanding results received by VCE students in the subject of Ancient Greek. Although 2015 was the first year in which students of the school sat for VCE exams in the subject, the results exceeded expectations.

More than half of those who sat for the 2015 VCE in Ancient Greek received a raw score between 30 to 36 marks, once the raw score was scaled (based on degree of difficulty) an additional 11 marks were added to each student’s raw score; in effect the end result meant that half the students received a score between 41 and 47.