BUHINGA PRIMARY SCHOOL HOLDS YET ANOTHER EPP INTER SCHOOL MDD / DEBATE COMPETITIONS.

All roads led to Buhinga primary school on 24^th August 2013 to witness yet another of the EPP Music Dance and Drama / Debate competition!

As a way of improving pupils’ communicative skills co-curricular activities like Debate Music Dance and Drama have been adopted to enhance the teaching / learning the four aspects of language i.e. listening speaking, reading and writing.

                

                  Project schools competing for the 2013 MDD/Debate award

The aim of inter school competitions is to tap the pupils potential streamline it so that we come out with well-grounded pupils with good communicative skills that they can use in their day to day life.

It’s for this reason that all the fifteen project schools sent 255 participants to Buhinga p/s to showcase their talents.

                            Pupils assemble for the National anthems

The National theme for the year 2013 is on Malaria prevention and children’s rights observance. The traditional dances, the set pieces, Drama skit and the Debate motion all rotated that theme.

The occasion kicked off with the arrival of participants as early as 7:30am.

By eight, most schools had arrived and without delay they all gathered in the main hall for the National and Tooro anthems. Set pieces followed, then Debate, Drama and lastly traditional dances followed suit.

Present were the D.E.O  Kabarole  Mr. Rwakaikara Patrick, the D.I.S Kabarole  Mr. Rujumba Joseph, the D.E.O special needs  Mrs. Harriet Angwena  D.E.O Special needs, Head teachers and teachers of the project schools in total made 51( teachers 23 male, 29 female).Also present were parents, teachers and pupils from non-project schools who had come to witness the occasion.

 Also present were the three adjudicators Mr. Kajura Nelson a Debate expert from Buhinga primary school, Mr. David Mweru a Drama specialist from Kahinju primary school and Mr. Rogers Ayesiga a dance analyst also from Buhinga Primary school.

The morning session saw the choral singing take the curtain raiser position, Debate followed and lastly Drama.  There was a lunch break of about 20 minutes after which the activity caught fire and run unbroken till 5:30 pm ending with Traditional dances after which speeches and words of caution/ encouragement from both the invited guests and the adjudicators followed.

The district inspector of schools Mr. Rujumba took the floor first. He first of all thanked Computers for schools for bringing back clubs that build and give confidence to the pupils!

                        D.I.S Mr. Rujumba Joseph addressing the audience

He thanked the teachers for the work well done amidst marking exams and report making. He said his wish was to see this kind of thing continue and spread to the most remote areas like Bagayap/s and many others. He lastly ushered in the D.E.O to address the congregation.

The D.E.O also started on the same note of commending computers for schools for having come up with the idea of bringing back clubs that had long been forgotten. He thanked teachers present for all the effort they had put in to see to it that this occasion becomes successful. He however cautioned them against giving lame excuses of funds as an excuse for abandoning the school clubs saying a thing like Debate just needs pupils a class and a committed teacher. He hailed the performance as good considering that there had not been many club activities in some schools for a long time.

In his own words, he summarized by saying” I commend you teachers for the work well done, given chance I wouldn’t bring out such results in such a short time”. He again put in a request to computers for schools to widen their scope of operation so as to give chance to the other unprivileged schools.

Next on line was a representative of the panel of adjudicators Mr. Mweru David who addressed the audience saying “I am glad that this year’s performance was better than last years for every one could see and feel the spirit of competition” 

Mr. Mweru David addressing the participants

He went on to point out areas he was disappointed with as:

·         Trainers are not supposed to sing and yet he had heard some sing

·         Drama only becomes drama if there is an element of conflict in it or else it just becomes an ordinary story

·               Characters are not supposed to play two roles giving an example of a pupil who had acted two roles: one as an old man in one scene and another as a young boy in the next scene.

·         Facial expressions should depict the feelings of the beholder let joy be joy and sadness be sadness he gave an example of a character who had smiled in a meant to be sad moment.

·         Lastly, he commended the teachers for the work well done saying there was a great improvement between last year’s performance and this year. He said he is expecting even greater and better results come 2014.

Next on the floor was Mrs. Harriet Angwena who  mainly re-echoed the former speakers words but also adding that  the 15 schools that are in the EPP programs should count themselves lucky in that no one can take what they have learnt from them. She encouraged members to try their level best to see to it that the co- curricular activities do not get into a slumber again. She asked them to keep the fire burning even after the project has come to an end.

Since she had been assigned the duty of handing over awards to pupils prior to her speech she stayed on stage waiting for the results to be announced.  Not long after her address Mr. Kajura Nelson got up to announce the results. He thanked members for  such a degree of patience they had displayed and went ahead to remind the audience about the results of writing and drawing competition that had taken place a fort unite ago were to be announced together with those of MDD  Debate ones. He then went on to announce results of MDD and Debate thus:

                                                                           DEBATE, MDD 2013 COMPETITION

NO	SCHOOLS	DEBATE	POSITION	SKIT	WESTERN CHORAL SONG	TRADITIONAL DANCE	TOTAL	POSITION
1	Bwanika p/s	39	15th	57	61	81	238	9th
2	Rubona p/s	63	7th	61	62	82	268	4th
3	Busiita p/s	44	14th	44	-	-	088	14th
4	Mugusu p/s	47	13th	65	64	68	244	7th
5	Kasiisi p/s	74	2nd	66	80	77	297	1st
6	Haibale p/s	54	10th	57	62	54	225	11th
7	Kigarama p/s	63	7th	73	75	75	286	2nd
8	Mtns of the moon	51	11th	60	60	56	217	12th
9	Conon Apollo demo p/s	66	6th	65	61	67	259	6th
10	Kabata p/s	55	9th	53	64	42	214	13th
11	Kibiito p/s	68	5th	68	60	68	264	5th
12	Kiboota p/s	72	3rd	58	57	56	243	8th
13	Karambi p/s	70	4th	60	65	42	237	10th
14	Rwimi p/s	78	1st	74	59	58	269	3rd
15	Paul Devilne p/s	49	12th	-	-	-	049	15th

He also went on to announce the writing and drawing results thus:

                                                                                        WRITING AND DRAWING COMPETITION 2013

No	School	Writing	Marks	Position	Drawing	Marks	Position
1	Bwanika p/s	51 48 40	139	14th	72 60 60	192	9th
2	Rubona  p/s	67 60 59	186	7th	68 65 45	178	11th
3	Busiita  p/s	28 13 04	45	15th	68 61 55	184	10th
4	Mugusu p/s	75 68 50	211	3rd	79 78 35	192	8th
5	Kasiisi p/s	82 80 60	222	1st	78 78 68	224	4th
6	Haibale p/s	78 75 50	203	5th	88 84 81	253	1st
7	Kigarama p/s	82 73 74	154	12th	77 76 74	227	3rd
8	Mtns of the moon p/s	67 60 50	177	9th	30 13 30	73	14th
9	Canon Apollo demo p/s	68 65 53	186	7th	74 74 60	208	5th
10	Kabata p/s	60 59 50	168	11th	70 68 -	138	12th
11	Kibiito p/s	75 72 70	217	2nd	72 70 60	202	6th
12	Kiboota p/s	69 64 60	193	6th	80 77 70	227	3rd
13	Karambi B p/s	67 62 50	179	8th	69 68 62	199	7th
14	Rwimi p/s	86 60 58	204	4th	85 82 70	237	2nd
15	Paul Devilne p/s	65 60 50	175	10th	27 17 15	59	15th

Mrs. Angwena performed the duty of handing over the trophies / prizes to the participants. 

               D.E.O for special needs Mrs. Harriet Angwena giving out prizes.

There were 4 trophies, one for Debate which was taken by Rwimi primary school, one for MDD that was taken by Kasiisi primary school, one for writing that was taken by Rwimi p/s again and lastly one for drawing that was taken by Haibale p/s respectively.

Among the best individual performers were:

·         Atuhaire Olivia from Kibiito p/s who emerged as the first best actor

·         Atusingunza Mathias from Mugusu p/s emerged as the second best actor

·         Tusiime benedet from Kigarama emerged as the third best actor

·         Asiimwe John  from Kigarama also took the forth position as an actor

·         Tumwine Andrew from Rubona came out as one of the best dancer

·         Mbabazi Lucy from Bwanika also took the second place as a dancer

·         Byaruhanga Joseph from Bwanika took the third position as a dancer

·         Kamakune Jennifer from Kiboota took the fifth place as the best actor

·         Twebaze Alex from Rwimi emerged as the best debater

·         Byaruhanga Dalton also from Rwimi took the best place as the best artist

All the best participants received prizes like geometry sets, wall clocks, pencils, pens, wall hangings and colors.  

The occasion came to an end at 6:15pm with a grand dance that took the winners and the losers to the floor as networking continued.

 The deputy Head teacher of Kasiisi receiving the overall winner’s trophy.                                            

                                        Winners dancing to their victory   

ACHIEVEMENTS

1.       Pupils and teachers were able network with other pupils and learn more.

2.       The long time dead clubs have been revived

3.       Stake holders saw the use and need of co-curricular activities in schools

CHALLENGES

1.       To organize such functions comfortably is a very expensive venture.

2.       Time keeping is a problem.

3.       Not every teacher is in full support of the recovery of these programs.

4.       In some of the schools there are no music teachers to train pupils so that makes is expensive in a way that trained services must be hired from outside.