After our first competition was pulled at the eleventh hour (literally an hour before the first debate) back in February, debating seemed like the first in a series of dominoes that haven’t seemed to have stopped falling since the start of this whole COVID-saga. However, since then, the debating program has adapted and continued to run in an online format, involving almost 70 students from years 7 to 12 . Many of these students have been involved in multiple competitions.

While the season isn’t over yet, with finals continuing and the junior competitions having just got underway, it has become clear how amazing our students were in their organisation, responsibility, commitment and how they have supported each other. As schools and organisations had to completely upend their established systems and formats, they had to deal with a hectic series of forfeits, postponements, last-minute changes, unpredictable internet outages and rogue weather events. However, in every single one of the dozens of debates that have occurred this year our students were always prepared and gave it their all. They have been an outstanding group and they all deserve our congratulations.

Below are the highlights from the past two terms of online debating and public speaking:

Monash Asia Studies Debating Competition

The very first competition to run in this format was a joint endeavour by Monash University and the Debaters Association of Victoria. Three teams of Huntingtower students ventured out into a brand-new Zoom-based debating format to be the guinea-pigs for this new style of debating. In three prepared-topic debates, they argued a range of nuanced and contentious topics regarding contemporary Asian geopolitics. Both teams did exceptionally well adapting to this novel form of debating. Particular congratulations go out to Martin Grozev (Year 11), who was awarded the best overall speaker in the competition, with the highest individual speaking scores.

DAV Schools Competition Debating Finalists

Having now confidently ventured into this new virtual debating format, a further five teams of Huntingtower students from Years 9, 10 and 11 competed in the DAV Schools Competition. This is the largest of the debating competitions; even in its reduced online format hundreds of teams were involved, representing dozens of schools from across the state. All of our teams did extremely well, with numerous wins and best speaker awards as the students adapted to this novel form of debating.

In an outstanding result, one of our Year 9 teams, represented by Pranav Choudhary, Rohan Dudani, Michael Xiao, Lithasha Perera and Danesh Sakthivel, finished the initial rounds of the competition undefeated and earned a place in the State Finals. They defeated Scotch College by three points in the State Octo-finals (the final 16 teams from across the state), with Michael Xiao awarded best speaker. They now progress into the Quarter-Finals: the final eight teams from across Victoria. Wish them luck as they continue to progress into the final stages of this competition!

Senior British Parliamentary Debating Finalists

Two Huntingtower teams competed in the Debaters Association of Victoria’s Senior British Parliamentary State Tournament: Vishal Ramesh and Tom Bateman, and Kallista Amery and Chelsey Dong. They did outstandingly well, with Vishal and Tom coming second at the end of the heats and Kallista and Chelsey coming fourth. This earned both teams a place in the State Semi-Finals. In overall speaker scores, Kallista came third in the competition, Tom came fourth and Chelsey came ninth.

Huntingtower was the only school to have multiple teams make it through to the Semi-Finals, where our teams took on the state’s other top debaters from Melbourne Grammar, Melbourne High, Wesley, St Kevin’s, Scotch, Xavier and Haileybury for a place in the Grand Final. Through some fierce and hard fought secret-topic debates, our teams finished third, narrowly missing out on a Grand Final place. We congratulate them all on an impressive achievement.

DAV Public Speaking Finalists

Earlier in the year a number of Huntingtower students from Years 7 to 11 competed in various DAV public speaking competitions which required them to record and submit various persuasive speeches in response to set topics. In an outstanding performance, three of our middle school students made it to the final round of the DAV Junior Public Speaking competition, placing them among the top public speakers in their age group in the state. Congratulations to Josie Marriott (Year 8), Daniel Liang (Year 8) and Prisha Rewal (Year 7) for their accomplishment!

Pantry Delights with Year 8

Cooking for the family