AISL hosted a friendly Tennis Tournament on Friday 7 June against LOTS (Lusaka Oak Tree School).
Both our girls and boys played very well.
​
Well done Young Leopards!

What I’m excited about this week…
 
Congratulations to the Class of 2019! The thirty-nine scholars of AISL’s 16th graduating class were honored at a beautiful Graduation ceremony on Saturday.  The event featured our band playing Pomp and Circumstance, our choir leading the Zambian national anthem, and Eden (Grade 8!) leading the United States national anthem on solo violin. Our poet laureate, Shalizeh, read one of her works and was followed by student speaker, Madison, and faculty speaker, Julie Frederick. We were blessed with a very special surprise appearance by His Excellency Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, First President of the Republic of Zambia, who shared some remarks and led the audience in singing Tiyende Pamodzi!  The ceremony was followed by a lovely reception at our Palm Pavilion. Many thanks to Julie Baldry, Sonia Old, and their team for planning such a memorable event for our graduates.
 
Primary Gate closed on Saturday, 8 June! On Saturday, 8 June, we will be closing the Primary School Gate. You are welcome to access the campus via the Secondary School Gate. The reason for this closure is that we are expecting a crane along with the delivery of four large shipping containers. These shipping containers will be used to store the contents of the library and some classrooms during the renovation project.
 
MAP Results were Excellent! We have received our most recent MAP Growth test results and they were excellent. You will be happy to know that our students, once again, scored at or above U.S. and international school growth rates in all grade levels and all subject areas. In some subjects and grade levels, our students achieved as much as a year or year-and-a-half MORE growth than their U.S. and international school peers. Many thanks to our faculty for their hard work in supporting our students! It is clearly paying off!
 
Library and Office Relocations! As we continue to prepare for our exciting renovation project, we are starting to relocate our administrative offices. These offices and the library will be moving so that the building can be renovated. As of the end of this week, the Admissions Office and the Director’s Office will be relocated to the Pavilion. Next week, the Business Office and Reception will begin to relocate to the Protea Room. I appreciate your patience as we make these moves.
 
Namwali Serpell Visit! Please join us for an evening with Zambian author, Namwali Serpell, on Wednesday, 12 June at 17:00 in the Tiyende Pamodzi Theater. Ms. Serpell is touring Zambia to promote her new novel, The Old Drift. Many thanks to our librarian, Terry Maguire, for initiating this wonderful opportunity for our community. You can read more about this event later in this newsletter.

Last Day of School for Students – 13 June - Noon Dismissal! This year has flown by. We will end the year with our final farewell assembly from 11:30-12:00 on Thursday, 13 June. Students will be dismissed at noon to begin their well-deserved holiday. The new academic year will begin on 8 August.

Campus Closed from 15 June to 7 August! Unfortunately, due to the large construction project that will begin when school ends, we will be closing the school campus to all recreational uses during the school holiday. This includes the library, fields, pools, and tennis courts. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we begin Phase 1B of our Campus Improvement Plan. When this phase ends in January, we will have a renovated primary school, smoother traffic flow, more parking, and improved safety and security.
 

The AISL library staff and some fabulous secondary student volunteers have been working hard to pack up the library in advance of the building work being done across the holiday. Moving 24,000 books and all the shelving and furnishings is quite a process! Fortunately, our returning students and community members checked out towering holiday stacks of books, which lightened our load and will keep everyone reading. We will be opening a smaller-scale library in the Palm Pavilion at the start of the year (with the coffee bar!) until the construction work is done. Please visit us there in August. We look forward to welcoming everyone back and will have approximately 1500 new titles for you to browse when our annual shipment arrives!

The results are in! AISL secondary students who participated in our reading challenge this year voted on their top choice for the MS Leopard's Paw book award and the HS Leopard's Eye book award. Students read two of the four (or five for HS contenders) short-listed books (the short-lists were created by students) and then voted via Google Forms for what they felt was the best book in the AISL library. At this week's assembly AISL middle school students Ethan and Scott announced the Leopard's Paw winner and AISL high school student Matteo announced the Leopard's Eye winner. The winners were no surprises! Put these incredible titles on your to be read list if you haven't read them already.

Thank you very much to everyone that came out last week on Thursday 30 May to watch the Sports Awards. The Varsity Teams Awards for the various sports were given to the following students:

​What an awesome morning it was last weekend on Saturday 1 June ! Well done to our U14 and U16 hockey players for playing so well!

​Congratulations to our U13 Boys and Girls Chess teams for winning first place! We are super proud!