Secondary School
Over the month of May, both the Trinity College Novice and Senior teams debated against opposition schools in the Western Australian Debating League – Schools Debating Competition.
Senior Team News
The Senior team, comprising of Debating stalwarts Matthew Blyth (11.2), Westlee Terrell (11.1), and Zach Mclean (11.7) participated in their second fixture against the SVACS Team 1, debating on the topic ‘This house prefers a campaign to ‘Change the Date’ over promoting reconciliation on Australia Day’. As the Affirmative, the team offered some solid points of argument, advocating for meaningful action on Australia Day and listening to the voices of our First Nations Australians. While they didn’t come away with a win, all three students delivered their points confidently, offered clear rebuttals and continued to work on offering thought provoking Points of Information and responses to those offered.
Just a week later, Matthew Blyth (11.2), Westlee Terrell (11.1), and Zach Mclean (11.7) rallied again for their first impromptu debate against the team from St. Mary’s Anglican Girl’s School, debating on the topic ‘The house opposes the stigmatisation of esotericism (e.g. tarot reading, witchcraft, astrology)’. With only one hour and a dictionary to prepare for this topic, the team did an excellent job interpreting what was a rather complicated and challenging topic, coming up with relevant and engaging points, and enjoyed what ended up being a very spirited and entertaining debate. The evening’s adjudicator acknowledged it was one of the more interesting ones that he’d adjudicated for and even though he didn’t give us the win, it was certainly a valuable learning experience for all on the Senior team.
With all Senior team members now involved in their Semester One exams, the next fixture is scheduled for Thursday 6 June, during Week 8 and we look forward to another strong effort from the Senior team then.
Novice Team News
On the Tuesday 7 May, our Novice team, comprising of Matteo Redolatti (8.3), Thomas Batten (8.7) and Leo Pileggi (7.4) took on Shenton College Team 4 in their first Impromptu debate. A first for WADL debating, impromptu rounds were introduced to all three levels of the Schools Debating Competition this year, with the Novice teams now also being challenged to think on their feet and ensure they were well-versed with the structure and layout of debating speech writing so they could do it in a pinch! The topic for this year was ‘This house believes that consuming online content is a ‘waste of time’’, with Trinity debating in the Affirmative.
Despite this being a totally new format for them, and with only an hour to prepare, the students came up with some solid points of contention and rebuttal and spoke confidently during the debate. Unfortunately, the opposition proved a little too strong for them this time and they didn’t come away with a win. Nonetheless, this was a valuable learning experience for all involved, especially in coming up with more strategies and tips for the upcoming impromptu rounds.
Round #4 of the WADL competition took place on Tuesday, 21st May at Perth Modern School. Newcomers Theo Shewell (7.7) and William Buttsworth joined Leo Pileggi (7.4) and Lucas Hall (8.4) in preparing for the topic: ‘This house regrets the norm of digitally recording experiences (e.g. taking a lot of photos on holidays, taking videos at concerts’.
After carefully reviewing debate speech outlines and how to structure arguments prior to Tuesday, the students went into their hour of preparation with a bit more confidence and were able to brainstorm and outline some very relevant points for the Negative side. With William as the reserve and support for the team, and Theo debating for the very first time, the Novice team came away with the win after presenting some solid points and rebuttals against their competition from Shenton College. This has certainly bolstered the team’s confidence with tackling impromptu rounds and we look forward to a spirited effort in the final fixtures of this competition in June.