Saturday, March 28, 2009

The Amano Debate!







Last year an Amano Christian School debate team travelled to Ndola Trust School for the first Independent Schools Association of Zambia inter-school debate. This week, on Wednesday 25th March, Amano had the privilege of hosting Ndola Trust for the return match. Amano had an all-male team of five very assertive young men while Ndola had three young ladies escorted by one young man. The fifth member of the Ndola team had been unable to travel at the last minute but their 'first' spoke twice to replace him.
The motion before the house was 'Juvenile Delinquency is due to lack of parental care.' Amano Head Teacher Hilary Millard opened proceedings by making the welcoming remarks. Rod Boatman was chairman, Martin Pflaum the timekeeper.
Amano were the proposition team and so opened the debate and Ndola followed with counter-arguments. On both sides the arguments were well-made and strong, Amano arguing that young people must be properly parented and closely monitored and encouraged, Ndola arguing that modern conditions required more responsibility from young people and that parents could not be blamed. The three judges had to give a great deal of attention - having been flattered by most of the speakers in their opening remarks! The three were Mrs Malambo of Ndola, the indepdent Mr Lukavu from Nchanga Trust School and Mr G Hind from Amano.
Ndola were declared winners by just 1.6 points at the end of the debate.
Both teams argued cogently and the audience responded very well. It was a thought-provoking session and a day to remember.
Amano's thanks are due to English teacher Lukundo Siwale who trains and encourages the debating team.
Our pictures show the Ndola team, the Amano team, Rod Boatman being briefed on his duties by Lukundo Siwale, judges Mrs Malambo and Mr Hind, judge Mr Lukavu and timekeeper Martin Pflaum and Rod Boatman at the lectern.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Amano's ISAZ Triumph!








Amano Christian School competed in the ISAZ (Independent Schools Association of Zambia) Sports Finals last weekend (7th March) with great success, made all the more remarkable by the fact that Amano was by far the smallest school. Indeed, Amano is so small that our teams for both Volleyball and Football are composed of the same students and although we qualified for Basketball it was judged too much to ask the team to compete in yet another sport! What follows below is something for which we praise the Lord, recognising also the dedication of the team members and the sustained hard work by our sports staff Steve and Jo Grove.

The girls football (for which they had not had time to practice) was a valiant effort. They were defeated in their first game 2-0 which was not at all a disgrace as the victors went on to be the new champions. In two subsequent games the opponents were held to a draw.
In netball the girls improved on last years performance where they dominated in three games, losing the semi-finals by only one dubious point. Volleyball was their 'target' this year and they were motivated and determined, having reached the semi-finals last year. This year they won all their games and came home the new champions!

The boys were wonderfully successful in both football and volleyball. In football they won two games and drew one. Both the semi-final and final were determined by penalty shoot-out and Amano came home with the champions cup, plus the kudos of having Martin Pflaum win the Best Player Award for the tournament, won last year by fellow-player Benjamin Mutti. In volleyball the Amano boys team triumphed in all their five matches to easily take the cup.

Amano team members and staff recognise that all this was only made possible by the gracious blessing of the Lord.

A couple of other points to note: ISAZ represents many schools that are not Christian, but two Christian schools, Chengelo and Amano took six of the seven trophies at this final! Amano's practice of having a 'heads down' before and after each match for prayer was noticed by other schools; finally Amano teams throughout the ISAZ events this year were again noted for their good behaviour and absence of bad language, sadly not something that all ISAZ schools achieve.

Pictures on this page by courtesy Michael Pflaum. A 15 minute video of the boy's football match highlights is available to download from:
http://www.amanochristianschool.org/isaz_football_highlights_09.mp4
(10mb download - to download to your computer right-click on the link and choose Download)

Monday, March 9, 2009

Primary Science Fair










On Friday 6th March a special event took place when the Primary school held a Science Fair in the main hall. Older readers (like this writer!) may wonder what a Science Fair is. Any doubts about the event were quickly swept away, however. The children had worked really hard and some of the excellent displays and the children involved can be seen in our pictures. Each display was 'staffed' and Secondary school students and staff and parents were welcome visitors. It was quite obvious that a great deal of work had gone into the Fair. Primary staff members Kaye Thomas, Deborah Cole, Martin Smith and Lyndsey Coleman had worked hard with the students over about three weeks. The results were well worth seeing and a credit to all involved.