After the official Gold Coast Debating Competition was cancelled last term, amidst the pandemic, Somerset College volunteered to host a strictly controlled invitational competition on our campus. Even after dissolving all of our originally-registered students and starting from ‘scratch’, we gathered a strong 12 teams keen to compete from right across Years 7 to 12.
Last Wednesday marked the start of the competition with Intermediate and Senior Round 1. Despite the lack of an audience to perform to, two of our Year 8 Debating teams attained remarkable wins, and thus deserve particular congratulations for their strong re-entry to the debating world.
We entered these two teams of Year 8 students, listed below, in the competition’s Intermediate Division, despite such usually being recommended for Year 9 and 10 students. The aim was to extend these incredibly talented and enthusiastic young debaters by exposing them to the standard they will face in next year’s Intermediate A Division competition. But, exceeding our already-high expectations, both teams came out on top of Year 10 teams from the Queensland Academy and Trinity Lutheran respectively.
The topic was of an incredibly complex nature for Intermediate debaters, let alone those younger than most in the division, seeing the students argue over whether ‘We have an obligation to prioritise employment over the environment’.
We are all very much looking forward to watching these students’ very promising debating careers develop over the rest of the season and beyond.
Year 8 Intermediate Division Debaters:
Anna Thomas Penelope Deacon Hayeon Byun Elliot Bartley Emmeline Anthony Patrick Liu (absent from photo)
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