On Sunday 25 October, five of our Year 9 debaters tuned in to what was, one way or another, going to be their final debate of the year. One nail-biting hour later, Pranav Choudhary, Rohan Dudani, Lithasha Perera, Danesh Sakthivel and Michael Xiao were announced as the winners of the Year 9 division of the 2020 Debaters Association of Victoria’s Schools Competition.

This is the first time in the almost 100-year history of the DAV that a Huntingtower Team has won the Schools Competition: the largest and most hotly contested debating competition in the English-speaking world.

The team’s year had begun with a stumble, as it had for all of our debaters: with barely an hour to go before the competition was set to begin in February, a COVID scare at the host school resulted in the round being pulled at the last minute, and with it the competition was placed on hiatus.

But like many things in a year that has required constant innovation, adaption and perseverance, the story did not stop there. We paused, problem-solved, and started to teach ourselves new ways of doing things. Within a few weeks the Schools Competition was restarted in an online form. Gone was the running around Wesley’s darkened campus from classroom-to-classroom, and instead students started logging in to Zoom rooms with headphones and group-chats ready, as we pivoted into this new online environment. The format may have changed, but the spirit of debating did not falter for a moment.

To make it to a Grand Final in the Schools Competition is a huge achievement. It is the largest debating competition of its type, normally comprising of 1,400 teams from across the state spread across four grades (for Year 12, 11, 10 and 9). While this year the number of teams was down, all of the most enthusiastic and passionate debating schools were represented, and the competition was no less fierce.

Firstly, the team had to remain undefeated at the end of their regional rounds. Gone were the geographic regions as teams were grouped together across the state. After winning debates against Ivanhoe Girls Grammar, Firbank Grammar, Mentone Grammar and Korowa on topics that ranged from tackling congestion, abolishing physical currency, banning Russian athletes and abolishing gun ownership, they finished at the top of the Tuesday region’s ladder and qualified for the state finals.

Only the top 5% of teams make it to the state finals, which run as a series of weekly knock-out debates where teams are automatically eliminated as soon as they lose, halving the competition each round. Our Year 9 team succeeded in a series of increasingly high-quality debates against Scotch College, Star of the Sea and Balwyn High School, debating everything from organ donation to fairy tales, until they were one of the last two teams left in the competition.

What followed was a Grand Final debate like no other. Audience members tuned in from across the state, watching pinned videos of speakers as the adjudicators’ heads floating omnipotently above them. The topic was “That regional Australia has been left behind”, and Huntingtower had drawn the negative side against the only other undefeated team in the state: Geelong College.

Lithasha, Michael and Pranav were the three Huntingtower speakers in the debate, with Danesh and Rohan assist with rebuttals and research. The next hour was an exceptionally intense, feisty and passionate debate of the highest quality, with both teams performing at exceptionally high levels. It was a constant backward-and-forward, with each speaker matching the one before them, leaving the audience on the edge of their seats. However, in split decision that highlighted the closeness and calibre of the debate, the adjudication panel awarded the debate to Huntingtower in a 2:1 result. The judges were also unanimous in naming Michael Xiao the best speaker in the debate.

This is a huge achievement for Pranav, Lithasha, Danesh, Rohan and Michael, and a historic day for Huntingtower, as our school finally claimed its first ever Schools Competition championship. Debaters need to be comfortable with defeat: out of the hundreds of teams who start in each grade, there is only ever one team who will not be defeated that year. It is one of the hardest achievements in debating, and we commend our students on an exceptional accomplishment in unprecedented times.

Our congratulations go out to all of the students who have participated in debating this year. While we celebrate the achievements of this team, there have been almost 70 students involved in a wide array of online debating and public speaking competitions throughout the year. It has been a reminder that, while things have changed, the world has not stopped, and it has been fantastic to see how enthusiastic our debaters and public speakers have been in continuing to follow their passions in this area. They have embraced the opportunities and unusual format to extend their skills, explore new topics, problem-solve solutions and speak with conviction.

It is especially impressive that, despite all the challenges that this year has thrown up, not once did a Huntingtower team fail to turn up for a debate. Our students have been outstanding in their responsiveness, supportive of each other and willing to adapt and overcame the myriad of unforeseeable challenges they have faced. Winning a Schools Competition Grand Final proved to be a fitting end for an entire cohort of debaters who have shown truly exceptional quality and skill. Well done, to every single one of our debaters!

Matthew McDonald Head of English

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