Year 6 Debaters win ISDA Championship

Our ten Year 6 debaters began the ISDA competition back in early February with little to no experience doing competition debating.  They were formed into two teams of five with their own coaches to train them and guide them through the competition. Now four months later, after many excellent wins through seven out rounds and a long finals series, both teams won through to the Grand Finals held last Friday evening.

The ISDA competition is probably the most difficult school debating comp in Australia, so it is a great achievement to be the last two teams in each division from the 32 teams who began. The Primary A team (Peta Bianchi-Howden, Rayna Zhu, Audrey Henderson, Caoimhe McAtamney, Mikayla Brown) were on the Affirmative against the team from Knox Grammar. The motion was, ‘That we should not use AI at Primary and High schools’, it was a very closely argued debate in front of a panel of three adjudicators.  After a long discussion our team lost in a split 2-1 decision, the team’s first loss in a run of 12 debates. The team was understandably disappointed but it’s a great accomplishment to reach the GF and they have many more future years to represent MLC School in debating. Thank you to their coach Angus who put in a huge effort to teach and support the students over many weeks of the competition.

The Primary B team (Alicia Wang, Elana Chrun, Arielle McBrien, Audrey Barnes, Mariella Tsolis) were assigned the Negative side on the same topic against the team from Trinity Grammar. It was a tense audience with parents having children going to both schools and not sure who to be hoping would win!  But our team was cool and composed in presenting a solid case for the benefits of learning to use AI responsibly from an early age.  They won in a unanimous judge’s decision and are the 2025 champions of the division.  Special mention to their coach, Old Girl Sarah Pearson (2022) who put in a great effort to nurture the students’ debating skills over many weeks.

Overall, we had a very successful season in the ISDA competition with seven teams making the finals series and four teams in the Quarter finals. Thank you to all forty students for their commitment to training and debating over two terms. To all the parents and carers who came to watch debates and collect students late on Friday nights from schools all over Sydney, thank you for all your support and help in making our MLC School debating program such a success.

– Andrea Rowe
Oratory Coordinator

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