Good evening and welcome to our school’s Graduation Ceremony, a ceremony to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of a very special cohort, GSL 2024!
Once again it has been a very busy and productive year. Our graduates have excelled in their university applications globally and I would like to mention as many of these as I can this evening. Beginning with the US and last year’s graduates, Savvas Gonatas has a place at the University of Rochester for Engineering with a generous annual scholarship of $67,900 for his basketball skills and academic performance. Stefanos Sotiriades has been admitted to the College of Wooster with an international Merit Scholarship for $49,000 and will be playing for their soccer team. Costis Ioannou has received a chancellor’s award worth $56,000 to study Computer Science at UMass Amherst. Alexandros Nathanael has an academic scholarship of $10,000 from the University of Indianapolis and will also be playing soccer and finally our graduating student, Christina Agiomamitou has been awarded an athletic and academic scholarship worth $47,000 for the University of the Pacific in California.
We have had some highly prestigious scholarships from the UK once again this year. Alla Elmabruk who returned to Libya at the end of Class 5, always maintained close contact with her classmates and teachers, and we assisted her with her application to the University of Cambridge. Alla received an offer for Mathematics at Lucy Cavendish College as well as a full scholarship for her tuition fees and living costs. Christina Raftopoulou has been awarded a Warwick Undergraduate Global Excellence Scholarship worth half her tuition fees annually for Law. Christina was also one of 3 students to receive an International Undergraduate Merit Scholarship of 10,000 pounds annually from the University of Sheffield. Elena Giannakou, Senior Prefect, and Erato Gavri also received these. Only 6 scholarships were given to students island-wide this year, so Grammar School graduates received half of these, a statistic we are very proud of! Michalis Kyriakou, GS 2023, received a Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Scholarship from Newcastle University worth £6000 per year to study Mathematics with Finance, a very impressive achievement as only 8 of these scholarships were offered Europe-wide for Bachelor’s degrees.
It is impossible to name all the students and graduates currently in the army who have attained entry to high-ranking universities around the world because it would simply take too long. However, I would just like to give a special mention to a some of those who have earned offers from very competitive institutions for the specific subjects: Nicolas Nicolaou GS 2023, for Data Science at the London School of Economics and Haris Thrassou for Economics, Finance and Data Science at Imperial College London. Ianthi Petrou for Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh and Elena Styliana Papadopoulou for Law and Christos Charalambous, our student president, for Aerospace Engineering at the University of Bristol. Despina Philippou received two offers for Vet Medicine at the University of Surrey and the University of Central Lancashire. Georgos Zambas received an offer for Computer Science at the University of Manchester. Elena Pissa, who has been performing throughout her time at The Grammar School, secured a position to study dance following a competitive audition at LIPA, the prestigious Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, joined there by Della Savvidou, last year’s student president, who is going to study Management for the Creative Industries and Performing Arts.
Continuing with some of the offers for Medicine and Vet Science globally: Anthousa Raftopoulou and Nicoletta Strati have secured places for Medicine at the University of Crete and Nicoletta has also received an offer for the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Nefeli Kosti and Simone Hadjigeorgiou have secured positions at the Unicamillus International Medical University in Rome and Maria Eleni Antoniou has been accepted at Semmelweis University in Hungary. Christian Karis has obtained a place at University of Ostrava in Czechia. Maria Andrianou has been accepted at the University of Vet Sciences Brno in Czechia to study Vet Medicine and we are still waiting on more acceptances in a range of countries. These offers are extremely competitive and involve additional admissions tests and interviews so I hope you will join me in warmly congratulating these students.
Many other students have earned places at other prestigious universities in Europe, and to name just a few of the confirmed destinations: Chara Siekkeri for Physics at the University of Groningen along with Maria Chrysi Cassianidou for Law and Ioanna Chara Iliescu for Psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam after obtaining a high–ranking score in the competitive entry test. EMany other students have earned places at other prestigious universities in Europe, and to name just a few of the confirmed destinations: Chara Siekkeri for Physics at the University of Groningen along with Maria Chrysi Cassianidou for Law and Ioanna Chara Iliescu for Psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam after obtaining a high-ranking score in the competitive entry test. Eleana Charalampous, Aspasia Ioannidou and Christina Spanou have received scholarships for Instituto Marangoni in Milan and will also be joined there by Dorothea Mela. Impressively Aspasia’s flair for design will be show-cased by the Cyprus National Team in the opening and closing ceremony for the 2024 Olympics in Paris as she has designed their formal uniforms. Three students: Tilemachos Christoforou and Charilaos Chrysostomou from 2023 and Maria Yiannaki have received scholarships for top hotel and business schools in Switzerland. Many students have applied to Ireland and will be receiving their offers at the end of August. As the trend is to apply to more than one country, we will feature our students’ final destinations on our website from the end of August. Rounding off with graduate news, it was exciting to hear that due to her impressive application, Ioanna Skaliotou (GS 2020) has received one of only two Gay Clifford Awards for Outstanding Women Students, worth £10,000 towards her Master’s in Economics at UCL.
Once again it has been a very busy year with many excellent achievements, events and activities and these owe much of their success to the talent and dedication of many students here this evening, along with their teachers.
Grammar School students and graduates won 9 Outstanding Pearson Learner Awards for the June 2023 examinations, including 5 Highest Mark in the World for A Level English Literature, Economics and Greek, the latter being awarded to Chara Siekkeri, and IGCSE Mathematics and Greek. Highest Mark in Europe for A Level Law and IGCSE Biology as well as Highest Mark in Cyprus for IGCSE English.
The Cultural Evening entitled I Believe in You(th) involved over 150 students and was very impressive. The Talent Show was highly entertaining and a great experience for all the students who participated both on stage and behind the scenes as stage managers and helpers. The talent of the performers was evident, and they were introduced by the highly entertaining presenters. The Greek theatre production “Eleni tou Evripidi” won 1st place in the Schools Theatre Competition organized by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport. The performance was exceptional, and I would like to extend a special thank you to our graduates for their excellent work: Vasilis Loizides, Christos Charalambous and Aias Zannettos along with Chara Siekkeri for her musical contribution and Christopher De Oliveira for his sound technician skills.
Our STEM programme now has over 100 students enrolled and they have been busy with activities such as winning the Komposto Initiative, working on global design challenges, succeeding in the Cyprus Youth Tech Fest and the Scyence Fair as well as winning the British Council Partner Schools Your World Video Competition. In other activities, students have been involved in MediMUN, Model United Nations sessions abroad, Euromath and Euroscience and trips abroad to many exciting destinations. There have been many student sporting successes, both individual achievements and team victories, notable ones being our Upper School Boys Basketball and Lower School girls basketball teams becoming the Nicosia Basketball champions and 2nd pan-cyprian. The Social Work Club once again made a significant contribution to improving lives for the vulnerable members of our community and beyond.
We would like to say a special thank you to the students and teachers who worked so hard for these events and the parents who offered their limitless support.
Finally, a thank you to all the students who danced and performed in the orchestra at our national celebrations and those who helped to organise a fantastic bbq for Tsiknopempti!
A special thank you to our student president Christos Charalambous and our two senior prefects, Giorgos Hadjiconstantis and Elena Giannakou, for their exemplary work in their respective roles.
Impressively, as the first Microsoft Showcase School in Cyprus since 2014, this distinction is a testament to the exceptional dedication of our teaching staff. We take immense pride in our 94 Microsoft Educators, 94 Microsoft Advanced Educators, 52 educators who have successfully passed the Microsoft Certified Educator exam, 17 Microsoft Innovative Educators Experts, a Microsoft Innovative Expert Fellow, 2 Minecraft Education Ambassadors, and a Microsoft Innovative Expert Master Trainer. We keenly anticipate further enhancing our skills and preparing our students for the future.
To read more about school activities and successes, our comprehensive Yearbook contains a comprehensive and colourful overview.
I would like to say a few words to our graduates:
I want to end with some inspiration from the tennis champion, Roger Federer, who recently offered some crucial lessons he learnt during his legendary career. He observed that “effortless is a myth” because behind what looks effortless is a lot of hard graft. Despite dominating world tennis, in statistics, he only won just over half the points that he played so as soon as he lost a point, made a mistake or was defeated, he had to be able to instantaneously move on. His mindset was, “when it is behind you, it’s behind you.” And in his words “This is crucial because it frees you to fully commit to the next point with intensity, clarity and focus. Negative energy is wasted energy!” So, GSL2024, spend your time wisely, doing impactful things that will benefit the future. Celebrate opportunities to learn, be it through formal education, experiences, travel, sports or just interacting with those around you. Cherish what you have – your family, your friends and your roots, and be always kind as kindness creates an everlasting ripple of positivity in the world. I would like to wish you all the best for the future, whether you are starting university or joining the army. Tonight, you join an extensive global network of Grammar School graduates whose achievements are impressive and wide-reaching.
On behalf of myself and the Headmasters, I would like to express our gratitude to everyone who has contributed to our activities and work this year. Our Director General, Mr Akis Gregoriou, for his trust and support, the Heads of Departments, all the teachers, the administration staff for their invaluable assistance and the support personnel for maintaining a clean and safe environment for all of us. I would also like to thank the Parents and Graduates Associations for their excellent contribution and support.
I hope you all enjoy this special ceremony tonight. Thank you.
