Monday 24 October 2016

The Wood Workshop

The following are paragraphs and thoughts lifted from reports Grades 6 & 7 wrote following an educational visit.   Mrs Kirk

On Wednesday 28th September 2016 at around 8:15am grades 6+7 were invited to the Amano workshop. We all set off on our little adventure that took about 5 minutes to get to. When we arrived we greeted the carpenters: Mr Kelvin and Mr David.


Mr. David and Mr. Kelvin showed us everything they used to make their woodwork look so perfect, like the joiner, bevel machine, sander, planer and the circular saw. There were all types of beautiful woodwork furniture that they had already made like a bed and many chairs, but they were working on a luxurious door.

Everywhere you walked there was wood and sawdust. They showed us how they get rid of it, it’s really cool, there is a pipe that’s sucks it out and drops it outside.

It was really noisy because of all the machines. That is why they used ear plugs. It also had a strong wood and dust smell.

Despite the loud noise it was really interesting.


When we were done with our tour we were allowed to get off-cuts (scrap) and keep them. Some got big pieces of wood and halved them to share with others – I shared mine with Keysha. Others even sanded theirs to make them smooth, I was one of them.

After picking, all the G 6+7s were at a machine; some are sanding their off cuts to try to make it smooth, some use the bevel machine to make the edges smooth, others use the circular saw to cut the off cuts into thinner pieces and a few are by the planer to trim the off cuts.

But I had some other plans for my wood. I was going to carve my name out of it and decorate it and do different types of creative things like picture frames and many more things. I really liked it and I hope we can come back again.


The two men were very kind because even though they had work to do they still cut and sanded wood for us. 

We all had great fun, but sadly it couldn’t last forever. Eventually we had to go back to class, taking the bits and pieces we got as souvenirs to remember this life learning experience, I know that whenever I look at my pieces of wood I will remember today. We all hope to go back there again.  

It was over all too soon, but we had a good time and by the end most of us were inspired to become carpenters.

Monday 3 October 2016

U19B Volleyball and Basketball

On Friday the 23rd of September the U19 teams went to Chengelo to play basketball and volleyball.

On Friday a little while after we arrived we played our first volleyball game against Lechwe. We were very slow to start and lost the first set too quickly and despite a strong push in the second set we lost 2 sets to 0. Our second game was against Ndola Trust and although we think the refereeing was questionable we played our hardest and lost 2-1. [The boys did extremely well mentally in this game as they had to win three set points to win the second set as the referee kept changing his mind and reserving the point after having awarded the point to Amano! The third set also went down to the wire. SG] Our third game was against Nsansa and after our game against Ndola we were rather disheartened and lost the first set too easily. During the second set we really tried but we could not get the game back and we lost 2-0. Our results meant that we played the 7th place game which was against Simba. We won the second set after losing the first but we slept in the last set and lost it. So we came out 8th overall.

Philip attacking from deep

The next day we played our Basketball games. Our first game was against Simba and after good first half we were tied 4-4.  The second half was a close contest and Simba barely beat us 13-10. Our second game was Lechwe and we were out to win, but we let them get into our heads and I especially played horribly and we lost 28-6. We would have played the 5th place game but our opponents Ndola trust forfeited the game so we won by default.

Amano countering with Ilunga

Overall the trip was not as bad as those score lines suggest, especially since we had a much smaller team than last year. We also probably played our best volleyball during the competition. I want to thank the team for trying their hardest despite the tough score lines. I also want to thank Mr Grove and Mr Jarrett for coaching and supporting us.

ISAZ Girls Provincial Basketball

On Saturday the 23rd September we went to Chengelo School to compete in the ISAZ provincial basketball games. We played four games, which were round robin games, so that meant we didn’t play in pools but round-robin scheduling arranges to have all teams play each other, with the winner emerging from the total points gained.

So we played Lechwe, Chengelo, Ndola Trust, and Mpelembe.

Our first game was against Lechwe, where we played well and beat them 14-12, because of good team work and a good attitude. Our second game was against Ndola Trust and this was our first time playing them this year and we did not let them beat us and they had a good team but we beat them 10-8. Our second last game was against Chengelo, our rivals, and this year I can say we played really well compared to the last year. We put in our best effort and although we lost that game 9-13 we had played exceptionally well as a team and made some beautiful baskets. Our last and final game was against Mpelembe ,this game was tough and we under estimated them. and this time they came fired up and ready to beat us ,so at the end of the match we were equalised and so we had 3 minutes extra time and we managed to score 2 more goals and then we won that game 8-6.

Amano (white) v Chengelo: Josiah warding off another attack

All I can say that this was a great basketball season and we emerged at second place out of 5 schools. We had a lot of fun, great sportsmanship amazing layups ,fabulous foul shots and beautiful defence line. Our women of the match were Natalya Yoro, Kathleen Kaufman, Fernulla Milner and Rosemary Nawakwi. Big thanks to the team for all the effort and applying all we learnt into the game, sportsmanship and for their great spirit of fighting till the end and to Mr Jarrett for coaching us and Mr Grove, Miss Simone and the boys for supporting and cheering us up and God for the safe trip, good health and his love and mercy.