Debating finishing up for 2023

This week we held the last round of our interschool British Parliamentary Style Debating tournament.  We have spent the term with 80 students battling it out for top honours in the Junior and Senior divisions.  It has given everyone plenty of practice speaking to attend our trials next Monday 4 December 2023 and Tuesday 5 December 2023 for the 2024 competition debating teams.  Our Year 8 to Year 12 teams will be decided before the term ends and our Year 6 and Year 7 team trials will be in Week 2 Term 1 next year (week commencing Monday 5 February 2024).

As a final debating event for this year the Year 10 ISDA/Archdale team (2023) of:

• Sophia Bucci
• Annaliese Yan
• Nitya Nimalan
• Uma Singleton
• Sarinna Cai

took up an invitation to attend a One Day Debating Tournament at the Australian Disputes Centre in Macquarie Street Sydney.  The MLC School team were one of 10 schools competing; our students were dubious to discover that they were going to be assigned to random mixed teams and could not compete together.  As the team has been working as a well-oiled machine for five years in several competitions this was a challenge for them.  But that was the point of the day, to throw the students into a new team where they had to quickly learn to work co-operatively with debaters they had never met before.

There were three rounds of prep/debates followed by a Grand Final for the top scoring two teams.  Adding to the stress, the 50 students also had to compete in an impromptu public speaking competition.  This involved being given a prompt (eg. ‘Technology is an addiction’ or ‘cities are for people not cars’), having 30 seconds to think of what to say, then facing the audience and giving a one minute speech. 

All the day’s activities from 9am-5pm were designed to challenge students to improve many of the skills needed to be an effective lawyer or barrister.  I am so proud of the way our team threw themselves into the vibe of the day and confidently performed in all their debates. Sophia Bucci’s team were undefeated and made it to the GF, which was adjudicated by a panel of three eminent legal experts. The topic was ‘That we should introduce an indefinite ban on developing future AI technologies’.

Thank you to all the debaters and public speakers who have participated in the many co-curricular activities and excursions my 11 coaches and I have run this year.  Thank you to all the parents and carers who have transported, spectated, and travelled around to collect their daughters from schools all over Sydney.  We have had a very successful year coaching over 200 students from Year 5 to Year 12 12 and hopefully maintained our reputation for excellence in Debating and Public speaking.

– Andrea Rowe
Oratory Co-ordinator