Secondary School

Novice Team 

Last week, on Tuesday 4th June, our Novice team, comprised of Spencer Hathrill (8.2), Jasper Morris-Luck (8.5), Riley Hall (8.4)and Marc Jacob (8.5) debated in the final fixture of the WADL Debating Competition for 2024. As first timers to the impromptu style of debating, the boys met prior to the afternoon to work out their strategy and consider their roles.

The topic was ‘This house believes that punishments for students should be decided by elected student leaders (i.e. student councillors instead of staff)’ with Trinity debating in the affirmative. With only one hour to prepare and with four members of the team sharing their brainpower, the team came up with some valid and interesting points, which they then delivered with confidence during the debate itself. While we did not come away with the win, it was certainly an interesting debate, especially on a topic that involves student voice and opinions on their own consequences.

As this is the final fixture for the WADL Debating season, the TC Novice team will enjoy a well-deserved break before we re-group in Term 3 and enrol in more competitions to continue to foster and develop this love of critical thinking and public speaking.

Senior Team 

The TC Senior debating team had its most recent debate on Thursday, the 6th of June, with Finn Stenning Alexander (11.1), Luke Chapman (11.3) and Zachary McLean (11.7) representing the College and bringing home a convincing victory against Swan Valley Anglican Community school in the Western Australian Debating League – Schools Debating Competition.

As the negative side, they received an exceedingly difficult motion: ‘This house supports reintegrative shaming’. The team brought laser-focus to their single hour of preparation after receiving this motion and locked in, brainstorming some very valid and pertinent points related to this challenging topic.

An intelligent debate was conducted, however a determining factor in TC’s victory was displaying a canny understanding of the prompt and how to approach it. All three speakers displayed their usual enthusiasm and confidence in their delivery and enjoyed the opportunity to engage in friendly discussion with the opposition throughout the evening.

Post debate, the team received much constructive feedback on strategy surrounding POIs and structuring our debate, as well as specific feedback to each debater, which I’m certain will be very helpful for future success.

The adjudicator noted that the organising team all agreed they were glad they didn’t have to debate this topic, and was very impressed with TC’s argument and manner. With another win for this season, we look forward to our final debate next week on Wednesday, 19th of June.

Luke Chapman (11.3)