18 Dec 2016
Recently, I was lucky enough to be selected to compete at the Junior State Debating Championships at Sydney Uni as a representative of the Western Sydney Region. On this team there were also four other students from James Ruse, Glenwood, Crestwood and Nepean CAPA.
Between the 28th-30th November, we had three high intensity debating days, made up of both debating and workshops with international debaters from Sydney University.
In our round robin, we won 3/4 of our debates and this placed us as 2nd overall within our pool. With the Sydney region also on 3/4 wins, they were placed 1st as they beat us in the politics round. Topics were as follows:
Topic 1 - Education
That sports and extra-curricula activities should count towards a student's ATAR
We were affirmative & won this against Hunter/Central Coast
Topic 2 - Politics
That politicians should be forced to send their children to public schools.
We were negative & lost to Sydney
Topic 3 - Media
That we should remove age limits on social media
We were affirmative & won against New England
Topic 4 - Law & Order
That we should never imprison those under 18.
We were affirmative & won against Western NSW
We were then up against the winners of Pool B, the Riverina Region, in our semi-final. It was a close debate with the topic:
That we should give primary school teachers an annual bonus based on positive feedback received from students.
We were negative and closely lost this debate. Riverina then went on to verse Sydney in the final, after Sydney defeated South-West Sydney in their semi-final. The Sydney Region won overall, keeping their title for the third year in a row.
This was the most wonderful learning experience and I cannot thank everyone who supported me throughout this enough! This was a once in a lifetime opportunity and the Western Sydney team is now in the top 4 in the state, an amazing achievement for all of us!