Andreas (Andrew) Andrikopoulos (1985)

We were pleased to have Andreas (Andrew) Andrikopoulos (1985) – pictured with Suzanne Ashley (former Alumni Manager) – come back to visit and tour the School. These are his thoughts:

As an alumnus, I decided to visit my school – some 34 years later and I cannot stop thinking of how amazing it is.  I am still overwhelmed by my visit. The school was unrecognisable, there were lots of refurbishments, to keep up with the modern education learning and practices of today.

You truly have to see it to believe it. The whole campus from the ELC, Bayview, Greenways and Frogmore are first class facilities for a modern school. Whilst touring the Frogmore learning spaces it bought back many memories of my student days at Mentone.

I was surprised to find Mr Horler’s classroom upstairs, near the IT Dept. and the charging station, it will always be Mr Horler’s classroom to me. I spent many lessons in that classroom in Year 11 and Year 12 studying Accounting and Economics.

When I sat down at the desks, the memories just all come flooding back. And to my surprise there were Accounting terms on the whiteboard (debit, credit, ledger etc.) – so I’m guessing it still is an Accounting classroom and later during the day I learnt that Mr Horler is still at Mentone. Surely, he will be bestowed Emeritus status when he retires.

I was fortunate to meet Mr Camm (Deputy Principal at the time) and discovered that he too is connected to Mentone via Mr Roger Smith. As you may know, Mr Smith is the Deputy Principal at Geelong College. Mr Smith was also a student at Mentone, Head Boy in 1977, and then as a teacher in the 1980s. I was privileged to have Mr Smith as my Form 4 (Year 10 nowadays) Form Teacher, Mathematics teacher and Basketball coach in 1983.

Thank you for allowing the community to visit and tour the School. A big thanks and well done to the staff who were approachable, friendly and professional, especially the students were truly amazing – polite, friendly, courteous, big smiles and very proud to show their school. Well done to everyone.

Proud to be a Mentonian!