Hellenic Community of Western Australia

Hellenic Community December 2023 - Greek Language

The West Australian Modern Greek Language Teachers Association

Mrs Katerina Reklitis was this year’s recipient of the Professional Teaching Council of Western Australia (PTCWA) Outstanding Professional Service Award.

                   

Katerina was honoured with the Award at the 2023 Presentation Ceremony, which took place on Wednesday 25 October at the Lake Karrinyup Country Club. 

                                                                                                                  

Representing WAMGLTA were the following members: Chair, Dr Angela Evangelinou-Yiannakis; Deputy Chair, Ms Maria Svarnou, who was also there in her capacity as a member of the PTCWA Executive Committee; and member, Mr George Anastassiadis.  Our nominee for 2023 and member of the Executive Committee of WAMGLTA, Mrs Katerina Reklitis was accompanied by her husband, Mr Michael Reklitis.  Also in attendance was the Principal of St. Andrew’s Grammar, Mr Craig Monaghan and his wife, Mrs Katia Monaghan, both proudly supporting Mrs Reklitis as a long-standing staff member of the school.  The Honourable Consul of Greece, Mrs Georgia Karasiotou, was among the special invited guests.   

Katerina’s citation for the PTCWA Outstanding Professional Service Award included the following key points:

  • Inaugural member of WAMGLTA (joined 16 November 2016)
  • Regular attendance at meetings, AGMs, and WAMGLTA events
  • Member of the Executive Committee (since 31 March 2023)
  • Active promoter of WAMGLTA in her school (St. Andrew’s Grammar)
  • Over 31 years of service at St. Andrew’s Grammar, that includes out-of-school hours commitment, such as:
    • Annual attendance at Kings Park State War Memorial for the two Greek National Days and The Battle of Crete Wreath-laying Ceremonies
    • Preparation and rehearsal of students for these events 
    • Weekend attendance at church services and formal events, such as community luncheons, with students performing items
    • Representation of St. Andrew’s Grammar at various events held out-of-school hours locally, interstate and overseas, including staff-student trips to Greece
    • Organising and assisting with Greek Consular functions for National Day commemorations; in particular, the 200-year anniversary of The War of Independence reception, assembly, and formal functions with the Hellenic Presidential Guard
    • After-hours Greek gastronomy cooking and publication of a student Greek recipe cookbook 

 WAMGLTA extends heart-felt congratulations to Mrs Reklitis for her award from the PTCWA!  She joins a growing list of WAMGLTA recipients of the PTCWA Outstanding Professional Service Award:

2017: Dr Angela Evangelinou-Yiannakis

2018: Dr Angela Evangelinou-Yiannakis

2019: Ms Irene Starr

2020: WAMGLTA (the Association)

2021: Mrs Nina Stamatiou

2022: Mr Nino Arvind Raju

2023: Mrs Katerina Reklitis

Dr Angela Evangelinou-Yiannakis

WAMGLTA Chairperson     

MESSAGE FROM OUR PRINCIPAL

Dear Parents, Guardians and Future students,

On Wednesday evening, I returned from one of those very proud moments of being Principal of St Andrew’s Grammar. Our Primary School Team won the IPSHA Academic Challenge for a second year in a row.  This against most ‘known’ school representing IPSHA – schools such as MLC, St Mary’s, Christchurch, Carmel, Scotch and Guildford Grammar, just to name a few.    

If we were honest, last year's win took us a little by surprise. However, this year, through the hard work of the students and especially Ms Ahmadzadeh, were all prepared very well and went into the competition confident in achieving well.  Our team won out against 24 teams across independent schools in Perth, essentially being academic team champions of 2023.   

Congratulations to Ethan Xu, Yiyan Li and Daniel Wang, who were on the winning team - Team Pythagoreans. We entered a second team - Team Hippocrateans - made up of Matthew Wang, Justin Tran and Kian Kapadia who also did extremely well and represented our school proudly. 

                      

The challenge constitutes six rounds of 10 minutes each in Geography, Spelling, Problem solving, Mathematics, General Knowledge, and Logic puzzles.    

Being there to cheer them on along with the primary curriculum management team and watch them work together to solve academic challenges, was a very proud experience and one I will not forget for quite some time. Mrs Wall agreed stating, “what an outstanding achievement- yet again- by our amazing St. Andrew's Grammar students. We are immensely proud of them all!”. Ms Ahmadzadeh added “we are so proud of the incredible achievement of our St. Andrew's Grammar students that is a wonderful example of the academic excellence we continually strive for at our school.” 

This is a fabulous achievement and doing this two-years running makes this even more special!! 

We are very proud of these young men and the teaching staff who not only prepared them well for the competition but taught them along the way. 

St. Andrew’s Grammar is well on the way of being an academic school of choice and a school where students can find their level of success irrespective of their talents. 

It was a great day for St Andrew’s Grammar. 

Centre for Hellenic Studies

The Greek language classes continue at two Saturday campuses; St Andrew's Grammar and Hellenic Community Centre with a total of 80 students.

The learning areas at the hall have been repainted and new equipment installed, to replicate classroom conditions. 

Officers from the Office of Multicultural Interests (OMI) visited the Hellenic Community Centre teaching areas in October 2023 and were impressed with the efforts to create a learning environment for the children.  The OMI officers encouraged the Community to lodge an application for funding to improve the learning areas. 

The Saturday classes will recommence in February 2024 at both campuses.

Kali Xponia

Management Committee