That’s a wrap for the Premier’s Debating Competition for 2022

On Friday the 26th of August 2022, our Year 7 Debate Team went up against Newtown Performing Arts High School for their third round of debates in the Premier’s Debating Challenge. The topic was Sports and we had to disagree with the statement that Australia should ban gambling on sports.

Our first speaker was Gabriel Cutcher Skellern, followed by Oliver Williams and then Jason Lim. Joanna Park was our team advisor. We also had the help of Oliver Wilson and Tom Mitchell as chair and timekeeper.

Even though they were defeated, I would like to commend them for making it this far in the competition. As I say to all debaters and students I teach, it is important to be proud of your successes but also own your setbacks and learn from them. More importantly, I applaud you for always bringing passion and enthusiasm to every PDC Debate we had this year!

I would like to thank all Year 7 students for having the most consistent attendance in Debating Workshops every Monday afternoon. It’s great to see that across all classes, from Luca Butterworth to Alejo Pintos Lopez, and to Daniella Villafana and Mehnaaz Hossain’s group, you are always consistently engaged and attentive for your coaches.

It has been an absolute honour and dream come true to coordinate Debating and Public Speaking at Fort Street for the last two years. For Year 7s, I have also had a lot of fun being your Assistant Year 7 Year Advisor this year and helping you settle into high school! Suffice to say you have settled in very well and I know you will achieve great things for Fort Street in the future!

Good Luck to all debaters and public speakers from Year 7-12 in your future competitions. I hope you can take the skills you learn from this amazing extracurricular club that we have been involved in this year, to achieve even greater things for yourself!

Ms. Truong

Debating and Public Speaking Coordinator