On Friday 27^th October, the whole of the Junior School gathered in the auditorium under a warm October sun, to honour the important historical event now known as Oxi Day. Our pupils proudly portrayed the events of 1940 with enthusiasm, respect and understanding of what had happened when the Prime Minister of Greece, Ioannis Metaxas refused to comply with the Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini’s demand for troops to enter Greece unopposed. He responded to the Italian ultimatum in French, the diplomatic language at the time, “Alors, c’est la guerre!” or “Then it is War!”. His courageous stand spread around the country with Greeks taking to the streets shouting “Oxi!”. This occasion is commemorated each year as a day that represents bravery and heroism for millions of Greeks all around the world. Our pupils participated in this national celebration with Year 6 pupils narrating the most important events of that historical period, reciting poems and literacy extracts and finally singing songs together with Year 5 pupils.

On Thursday 26^th October, our three Year 2 classes were taken to visit the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation as part of this term’s art & design curriculum on Portraits & Sculptures. The guides at this wonderful museum introduced the children to contemporary art pieces from both Greek and foreign artists including works by Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Degas and Kandinsky. The pupils were taught about the use of colour in art and were especially happy to be given the opportunity at the end to create their own interpretations of what they had seen.

On Tuesday 24th of October, the Reception classes took a trip to Pedopolis in Glyfada to celebrate Hallowe’en as they explored this term’s topic of “Celebrations and Holidays around the World.” Each child decorated a pumpkin mask and played some traditional Hallowe’en games. They took part in an apple race and were very excited to carve a pumpkin. Each class had their own Jack O’ Lantern to take back to school. The children left with smiles on their faces as they had such a fun time investigating Hallowe’en!

On Friday 20^th October, the St Lawrence community gathered together on a very mild evening to celebrate the changing season with an outdoor family fun-filled party at school. There were pumpkins galore as our junior school families did not disappoint with a range of creatively carved and painted pumpkins to add to the Hallowe’en atmosphere.

There was food and drink to enjoy and this year we were especially proud of our fund-raising endeavours too. The junior school Charity Ninjas along with the senior school staff and PE department organised many fun games and a photo booth to raise money for the animal victims of the floods in central Greece some weeks ago. “Play for Thessaly” was a great success with almost two and a half thousand euros earned on the night and subsequently contributed to this worthy cause. Thank you to all our families for the continued support!

At St Lawrence College, we believe in fostering responsibility for learning as well as responsibility for each other at all levels. For this reason, we have important posts of responsibility across the school. We recently selected this year's House Captains for Attica, Epirus and Macedonia from an enthusiastic Year 6 cohort. These pupils applied for the position and were chosen due to their being diligent, considerate and very friendly individuals. Congratulations to them all!

Our school hosted the Over 16 boys’ football and girls’ volleyball tournaments on Wednesday the 18th of October. 
There were six schools that took part in the boys' tournament. After one draw and one win the group stage our team advanced to the final. In the final we lost to St. Catherine's ultimately finishing in 2nd place. Following this very pleasing display, our boys now look forward to competing in the Aegean tournament in Thessaloniki, which commences on the 30th of November. 
Both the girls Under 16 and Over 16 team took part in the volleyball tournament where 5 schools took part. The Over 16 team managed to get into the final where they faced Campion. After a very close final which was decided via a tie break, our girls finished in 2nd place. 
Congratulations to all our athletes for their excellent display in this tournament and a big thank you to the coaches Ms Dikaioulia and Mr Strzemiecki for all the effort they put into preparing our teams for this big event.

On Thursday the 12th of October the first over 16 tournament of the year took place in ACS. Six international schools took part in the tournament. Our boys competed in volleyball and our girls in football.
After a long day, packed full of matches, our girls finished in 3rd place and our boys in 4th. Well done to all the team members for their valiant effort.
A special thank you to the coaches Mr Styliati and Ms Dikaioulia for their work with the school teams.
Finally, we look forward to the tournament which our school will host on Wednesday the 18th of October.

From 9^th-13^th October the senior school had some interesting events happening for Mental Health Awareness Week.

To get the ball rolling, on World Mental Health Day the assembly by Ms Perraki was all about ending the stigma attached to mental health. All pupils and teachers in the senior school wore stickers of a green ribbon for the day showing our support for reaching out and talking about mental health. Also, some Year 12 and 13 pupils took fun photos of senior school pupils and staff with helium balloons and our St. Lawrence College mental health matters photo frame at short break and lunch. It was incredibly popular, and it was great to see so many people enjoying the photoshoot!    

On Wednesday 10^th October all the senior school had extended form for ‘Friendship Form’. An older and younger form group were paired up and pupils had the opportunity to discuss scenarios about mental health support and the older pupils shares advice with younger pupils. We will have some more Friendship Form opportunities at regular intervals in the year to encourage the cooperation and interaction between different year groups. At lunchtime on Wednesday, Ms Michaelides ran a yoga session for staff and pupils to enjoy. The Year 7 and 8 pupils that attended really enjoyed the session. 

During the week the Art, PE, Science, EAL and PSHE lessons had an array of happenings related to mental health. Pupils in Years 10-13 did an activity about managing stress in form time to get pupils to consider how to manage pressures they may face.

Around school, wall displays also raised awareness of the importance of looking after your mental wellbeing and ending the stigma attached to mental health.

The Pastoral Team ensure that mental health is considered every day at St. Lawrence College, but this very varied week was much appreciated and supported by all our school community.    

Throughout the first few weeks of school pupils got a taste of our available after-school clubs which are starting on Monday 2^nd of October. Coaches came and presented clubs such as Cheerleading, Karate, Rhythmics, Rugby, Tennis and Yoga during PE lessons which pupils thoroughly enjoyed.

The school provides a wide variety of clubs which operate every day to cater to the interests of every pupil.

If you are interested in signing your child to any club, you can do so by contacting Ms Koutsoubidou in the administration building.

We look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible and wish all members an eventful year with plenty of tournaments, presentations, games and most importantly, a lot of fun!

School life is off to a super start with pupils from all over the world gathering once again in our very special school community. The children and staff at St Lawrence are making the most of their time together here, ensuring that every day is filled with learning as well as laughter. Playtimes are all about fun and games, and the sun is shining brightly over our playgrounds. Let’s all do our best to make 2023-2024 the best year yet!

2023 Public Exam Results Success

The anxious wait for exam results is over now as IGCSE, AS-Level and A-Level results have been released, and it is now possible to draw conclusions and assess the performance of our school’s exam candidates from the 2023 summer exam session.

Year 13 and A-Level

Ahead of these results being released there had been substantial coverage in the media that the exam bodies would be strict in their marking this year, believing that the impact of the covid pandemic is fully in the past. This may have led to anticipation of lower marks, but even so, the performance of our Year 13 cohort has been impressive. Across all A-Levels taken in the UK, 27% were A*or A grades. At our school, 45% of all A-Levels taken were awarded A* or A grade.  One in six of all the A-Levels taken were awarded an A* at St. Lawrence College, compared to only one in every thirteen A-Levels across the UK.

More than a quarter of our school’s Year 13 pupils (19 of the 72 pupils) achieved straight A*/A grades across all their subjects. One in every six A-Levels resulted in an A* while just under half were an A* or A grade. Indeed, an “A” was by far the most frequent grade awarded, being easily more common than the second most frequent, a “B” grade, with “A*” being the third most frequent grade across the Year 13 cohort.

In terms of performance within subject areas, more than half of all candidates achieved at least an A grade in Biology, Chemistry, French, Further Mathematics, Geography, Greek and Physics A-Levels. Particularly impressive were Biology and Further Mathematics where the A* rate was 47% and 27% respectively.

Many pupils did extremely well, with the following being truly outstanding: Nikolaos Synodinos (4A*), Dingnan Huang (3A*), Yuqian Liao (3A*1A), Foteini Kalamatianou (3A*) and Timothy Tay (3A*).

For our pupils now completing school, there now faces the transition to universities and colleges around the world. A very small selection of these, to give an example of the variety, includes UK universities such as Queen Mary London, Imperial College, London, Warwick, Edinburgh, Manchester, Durham, and UCL London. Also, we have pupils taking up courses at universities in the USA, Italy, The Netherlands, Hong Kong, Canada, Cyprus, Austria and Spain. Just as varied as the destinations, are the degree courses our school-leavers will be starting, which include Aeronautical Engineering, Business Management, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Economics, Dentistry, Accounting & Finance, Fine Art and Law.

Year 12 and AS-Level

At AS-Level, where “A” is the highest possible grade (A* doesn’t exist at AS-Level) global assessment was once again set to pre-pandemic standards, leading to an anticipated moderation of grades among schools across the UK and around the world. At our school, our Year 12 cohort performed very admirably, matching the achievements of typical years over the pre-pandemic era.

That more than one out of every three among the 253 AS-Levels taken resulted in an A grade demonstrates this. Indeed, with “A” being by far the most common outcome, with a frequency twice that of any other individual grade, the collective AS-Level achievement can be considered impressive. 

Analysis by subject reveals that at least half of all pupils’ AS-Levels in Art, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Further Mathematics, Greek, History and Physics resulted in either an A or B grade.

Across the entire cohort, 14 of our pupils in Year 12 scored straight A grades. Among those were Dimitrios Grigoropoulos (5As), Huijie Cathy Su (5As), Kleopatra Anastassiou (4As), Yunhan Emily Chen (4As), Paris Larios (4As), Yun Zena Li (4As), Efstathios Pettas (4As), and Ziqing Tracy Qian (4As).

Year 11 and IGCSE

More than one in three pupils (34%, or 28 of the 82 pupils) scored either straight A*/A grades or had a majority of A*/A grades as their results from IGCSEs.

Analysis of specific subjects reveals that at least half of all pupils scored A* or A or B in Biology, Chemistry, Chinese, English Language, English Literature, French, History, Mathematics, Physics and Spanish; and in most of these subjects, half the candidates or more achieved at least an A grade. Overall, 42% of the 625 IGCSEs/GCSEs taken resulted in an A* or A grade, while 80% scored at least a C grade.

Pupils who achieved notable success include Konstantinos Zafeirakis (8A*,1A), Despina Salachas (8A*,1B), and Guoguo Chen (7A*,1A,1C)

Well done!

St. Lawrence College Headmaster Phil Holden commented “These results reflect the hard work of so many of our pupils and indicate that anything is possible with determination and perseverance. I also congratulate and thank our outstanding teachers and school staff, right across St. Lawrence College, for all their hard work that has led to these achievements through the last school year and throughout these pupils’ education building up to this point. Finally, I wish our school leavers every happiness and success as they embark on the next stage of their lives, whatever that is. I hope they will keep happy memories of their school days at St. Lawrence College!”

On Wednesday 19^th June, St. Lawrence College hosted its Annual Awards Ceremony to bring the academic year 2022-2023 to a close. With a warm atmosphere of affection for the school, nostalgia for times gone by and with excitement for the future, our extended school community congratulated the pupils who had worked so hard all this year. The graduating class of senior school pupils preparing for university and beyond were acknowledged by all and their achievements noted. Our guest of honour, Professor Stathis Kalyvas from Oxford University spoke of finding integrity in whatsoever one should choose to do in life, and our Head Pupil relayed her thanks to all those who had contributed to educating this cohort of graduates. All in all, it was a joyous occasion to be remembered as we head into the summer and the range of fun-filled sunny days that follow. We look forward to welcoming our school body back in September for another successful year of learning!

On Monday 19^th June, the Early Years held their most welcoming event, their ‘Family Day’. It was a wonderful occasion which gave families and friends the opportunity to hear these young children singing songs and to showing off their learning in a school environment. It was also that special time when each pupil received their end of year certificate. The formalities were followed by an enjoyable and relaxing picnic all together, for which families had contributed a traditional dish from their country, so that all could share. It fitted together so well with the last important topic of their year, ‘People from Around the World.’ What a lovely day was had by all!

Dr. McMullin's Junior Drama Club, together with Ms Romeos’ Choir Club delighted a packed audience with their singing, dancing, and acting on Friday 16^th June. The Fairies in the Wood were spectacular despite the rain that fell on their fragile wings! As they say in all the best theatres though, “the show must go on!” In the second performance of the evening, the cast of Moana came alive in Hawaii to meet with Maui and Gramma Tala. The children performed with really professional acting skills, and everyone was impressed. Let's not forget the songs sung by the choir, that accompanied the actors beautifully. Congratulations to all for a wonderful evening of entertainment!