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Recent Lincoln School News

Monday, May 18, 2015

Athletic Banquet 2014-2015


Many thanks to those of you who managed to make it to our 2014-2015 Athletic Banquet last night. For those of you who had already left Nepal, or were unable to make it for another reason, I am sharing my opening remarks, as well as the videos for each season. Thanks to all for your support of our program. I am very proud of our student-athletes.

Good afternoon everyone and thank you for taking the time to help us recognize the efforts of our student-athletes at this difficult time for our country, Nepal.


I think we need to reword our spirit song to include the lines: "It can shake us, but it won't break us!" Because you, our Lincoln students, have been immensely courageous this whole year and, especially, over the past few weeks.

I recently wrote a small end-of-year-report for our school board that included some of the following information:

113 different students of 152 total - including 5th grade - participated in SAISA this year. This meant there was approximately 74% participation in our SAISA program (including grade 5). 78% participation in the SAISA program from our Secondary students only. This is up from 60% last year.

That is an impressive statistic and illuminates just how many of our students are ready to devote their time to their own wellness, learning and growth outside of regular school hours. Their dedication has led to some of the following outcomes:

(just listing top 3 finishes, schools records, and other stats):
  • SAISA Girls' Volleyball Finalists
  • HIMS Swimming Championship – Champions
  • Little Angels' School Swimming Championship – 2nd place
  • Girls' Swimming – 3rd place & 15-19 girls Champions
  • An astonishing 41 School Swimming Records broken this year, including 5 SAISA records.
  • Two of our swimmers – Sofia Shah and Niharika Tuladhar - represented Nepal in the World Swimming Championships this year.
  • SAISA Boys' Football - 3rd place
  • Hosted a successful SAISA Boys' Football Tournament for the first time ever.
  • Our Boys' football team participated in two local inter-school futsal tournaments and won them both convincingly.
  • SAISA Badminton – Sent a participating team for the first time in history.
  • SAISA Girls' Football – Champions
  • NISSA Boys' Basketball Finalists
  • SAISA Track and Field – 12 school records
  • SAISA Badminton – Sent a participating team for the first time in history.
However, these statistics do not even tell half the story. There were countless moments of courage, kindness, and grit displayed on many occasions by all of you student-athletes sitting here today. Far beyond the numbers, the medals, and the trophies are the enduring friendships, values and memories of laughter, glory, and tears.

We will remember when the 6th grade boy, Hridayendra, stood up in front all the swimmers in Chennai to talk about a moment of trust and respect. We value sportsmanship.

We will remember swimming in the freezing water and the dark at the end of October, and then the nerves of being on the blocks before our first race, the adrenaline shooting through us as we push ourselves as hard as we can go. We value commitment.

We will remember the fun boys' volleyball games against the staff and how you grew as a team  throughout the season. We value enjoyment.

We will  remember how our girls' volleyballers got trounced by ASB the first game of the tournament on their home court, and then came back to beat them in the semi-finals. We value resilience.

We will remember how we had never participated in sports before, but chose come out to represent Lincoln's first Badminton team. We value courage.

We will remember how refined our backhands and second serves and then beat the heat in Mumbai. We value the learning of skills.

We will remember hosting our first boys' football tournament, Nathan all bandaged up, Pujen gliding through players, Norchen doing push-ups and saving penalties. We value teamwork.

We will remember Carmen running through players legs in Colombo, and the spirit and positivity our girls exuded. We value interdependence.

We will remember how our boys' basketball team grew during both NISSA and SAISA tournaments and how they saved their best performances for the last day, after news of the earthquake had already filtered through. We value a growth mindset, and "I can do it" mentality.

We will remember how Suryansh scissored and Maya flung across the sand. We will remember the fear of not-knowing, and how we cared for each other when we needed it most. We value trust.

We will remember how our Snow Leopards heard the news of the earthquake and then went out and played with fearlessness and passion to thrash the mighty Geckoes in the final 4-1. We value leadership.

Leadership, in these challenging times, is something our students and staffpossess in abundance. I would publicly like to acknowledge the support of our coaches, admin, custodians and bus drivers, as we all play a significant part in the interdependent community that is Lincoln School. Our Sports Leadership Team consisting of Suryansh, Galen, Sofia, Emma, Elen, Laura, Iskra, Kubahan, Rahab, Nathan and Nala have been wonderful Ambassadors for our program.
There is a Tibetan saying, "Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength. No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful the experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster."

We will also remember these days for the rest of our lives. We value Perseverance. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your efforts and support. Never give up.


Luke Davis

Friday, May 8, 2015

Grade Four Supports Nepal Earthquake Relief Efforts

Grade Four Supports Nepal Earthquake Relief Efforts

By Brian Fawcett, Grade 4 teacher


On Monday morning I was a bit apprehensive as to how fourth grade students would react this week - I expected neediness, immaturity and discipline issues. What I discovered is that these children are a lot more resilient than we sometimes give them credit for. After the initial stories of "Where were you...", our conversations turned to community members affected by the earthquake. In particular, they wanted to know how our friend Bijay (school gardener/farmer) had fared. As you may know, over the last couple of years fourth graders have established a relationship with Bijay and his family at Okhar Pauwa through our Explore Nepal program. He told me that his family member's homes had been destroyed and the entire area near his farm had suffered major damage. He is working with a committee of local people to gather and deliver food, water, medicine and shelters as well as assistance and material for rebuilding. I shared this information with the students and they immediately wanted to help. When I suggested that we donate the funds raised from our vegetable sales they approved wholeheartedly.

Given all that has happened and the magnitude of this disaster, this is one way that fourth grade students can really and truly make a difference in helping Nepalis rebuild their homes, their communities and their lives. I feel confident when I say that these children will remember this for the rest of their lives.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Girls Football 2015 Champions!



            The 2015 Lady Leopards football team had an unforgettable experience in Dhaka this year working as a team to capture the championship title. Lincoln School competed alongside five other SAISA teams , AISD, TAISM, AISC, OSC, and ASB. With our rock hard defense, skillful midfield, and agile offense Lincoln was unbeaten.
The opening game was against last years champions AISD, we surprised them with an early goal scored by Lina Gulbrandsen and held our ground till the end winning 1-0. Our next game was against TAISM at 11:00 the hottest time of the day and still, with the header goal by Emma Shrestha just before half time, another win 1-0.
On day two we played Bombay just before the lunch break and fought hard, scoring the first goal was Lina Gulbrandsen early in the first half, but conceded a penalty on a hand ball. Unfortunately we missed a penalty and finished in our only tie in the tournament 1-1. Later that day we had one of our most important games, this game assured us that we would compete in the finals. We played OSC, a very strong team in the tournament and Emma Shrestha scored the first goal from a through ball. After the half, they scored an own goal followed by Lina Gulbrandsens off the post goal , finally to add on to our lead Laura Herrens volley over the goalkeeper. OSC did score one goal from a punt by a defender, a huge win 4-1.
On the last day the team played Chennai and put all of the substitutes in to rest our starting team for the finals match. Lincoln won 1-0 with a goal scored by Karuna Sakya-Hooper in the few minutes she and some of the starting team players were in.
During the next game, when the team was watching Bombay vs. Colombo which would decide who went to the finals, a small earthquake hit and the Lady Leopards' first thought was is if the epicenter was Nepal. Soon after we searched the web for any news and on many news channels we found that Pokhara is where the earthquake hit. For around an hour everyone tried to contact their parents all at once, it was a room full of crying, terrified girls, worried for their families and friends back home. After everyone contacted their families and found out everything was fine the team decided they would win for their country, they would win for Nepal.
The time for the finals to begin had come and each and every player was to give it their all. To start things off was a goal, off the post in from Karuna Sakya-Hooper, this got the team's spirits up and hungry for more. All the team did was put pressure and take advantage of their mistakes, the next goal, also scored by Karuna Sakya-Hooper was a small tap into the left corner of the net, taking advantage of the defenders misplacement. To finish the halfs scoring, Laura Herren yet again a volley to the top of the netting, 3-0 at the half. The goal for the second half was to keep pressure, and after a few minutes Emma Shrestha scored from way out. Colombo finally got their glimpse of hope when they scored off of a beautiful corner kick, but in the end Lincoln came out on top, winning the title 4-1.
The Lady Leopards celebrated and were all in shock of what they had all accomplished, this may very well be the best moment of their lives. being underdogs in the tournament because they had lost mostly all key players. This year they started fresh, but they played as one, and they played as a team.


Lady Leopards on three! One, two, three Lady Leopards!

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Lincoln Hoopsters Grow Throughout Tournament

The Lincoln Boys Basketball Team had a great season coached by Rishi Robertson and Zaheer Khan. During the local tournament, the boys came to finals against KISC and finished second, with a great overall performance. In SAISA, the boys finished fifth out of eight teams, an improvement from last years performance. The boys finished the SAISA tournament strong by beating OSC in the 5th place playoff, and beating TAISM in the 5th and 6th game, a team they had previously lost to in the beginning of the tournament. Next years team, will definitely have some new faces, as the starting five consisted of four seniors. Everyone was able to play to their full potential as they were able to utilise what we learned throughout the season during the tournament.


--
Luke Davis
Athletic Director
Lincoln School
P.O. Box 2673
Kathmandu, Nepal
(M) +977-9851015676
(T) +977-1-4280482
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Tuesday, May 5, 2015

The Lincoln Secondary Online Learning (LSOL) Program

Dear online parents and students,

I hope your lives are settling down at least a bit.  We had a very positive first day back with students here at Lincoln; the kids were clearly happy to be among friends, though many of you were missed.

You are currently out of town, or soon will be, and will be looking for ways to keep up with the learning missed during your absence.  The purpose of this email is to let you know how we are all going to accomplish this together.  

The Lincoln Secondary Online Learning (LSOL) Program 
The Lincoln online learning program will run in parallel to regular classes for the remainder of this semester and will allow students who are unable to be on campus to continue learning and to complete the academic work needed to receive credit for the semester. 

Students will be given online support through the Google Classroom platform, accessible by each student through their lsnepal.com Google account by going to http://classroom.google.com/.  

For each class that takes place on campus, and that has students in the LSOL program, teachers will upload an assignment or announcement on Google Classroom to inform students and their parents of the learning goals and assigned learning tasks for the class that day.  Parents and students will also be able to keep track of classes using the appropriate grade level academic calendars, found here: http://www.lsnepal.com/index.php/academics/middle-school/academic-calendars#year=2015&month=5&day=4&view=month

Google Classroom will be supplemented by other online resources (TedEd, YouTube, Khan Academy, etc.), Skype, video lessons, screencasts and email chats as appropriate and when feasible.

A coordinating teacher will be assigned to each student and will ensure consistent communication between the home and school.  This teacher will send out an introductory email soon and check in on a weekly basis, or as needed.  Once they have contacted you, please be sure to use them to work out any difficulties or questions you have.  We are working hard to ensure continuity in your child's education and know that there may be some snags, for example with access to the internet.  We are a small school and are able to be flexible so please let us know as soon as you hit a snag so we can work together to figure out a solution.

If you have any concerns or questions in the meantime please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,