The Great Debate 2019

First started in 1954, the The Mordialloc Great Debate between graduating Year 12 students and three teaching staff occurs each year just before VCE exams begin. This year the stakes were high again with the teachers trying to recover from two years straight defeat. With a new judges rubric in play, the teams selected and more students than ever before in the audience a relocation from the LC to the gym was required, the scene was set for a sensational tussle and it did not disappoint.

In an enjoyable debate on the topic of ‘Teachers should not be allowed to use memes in class,’ this year the teachers were ultimately victorious and the proposition was rejected. A huge congratulations to Mr Walters, Ms Webber and Mr Nicklen for their humour, good sportsmanship and acuity. The students also are deserving of congratulations; well done to Alex, Joshua and Levi who certainly, after a grand entrance, continued on to provide entertainment value and good spirited competition against an ultimately victorious teachers triumvirate.

A further thanks to our judges and timekeepers, Ms Greenhalgh (Director of Senior School), Principal Roberts, Debating Coordinator Mr Vicary, Ben Stewart, Elizabeth Ng, Sarah Sundstrom on the judging panel and Zoe, our timekeeper. Thank you also to Ms Stevensen for chairing and setting the challenging but good natured tone of the whole event.

Also, we would like to reiterate the message of congratulations given by Mr Vicary at the start of the debate to our interschool debaters who have been competing across this year with teams from other schools. This year we competed at the highest level of inter school debating against a range of top level private schools and impressively ranked as the fourth best school in Victoria.

Our best performing team was:

Callum ROBERTS

Ricardo PROVENZALE

James VICENDESE

Dylan BROWN

Jeremy THAI-CHAN

A huge congratulations to them as well and a big thank you to Mr Vicary for all the time and effort he puts in to support them across the inter school competition.

We wish our debaters all the best next year, and look forward in the short term to hearing about all the successes our Year 12’s will have in their upcoming exams.

Mr McConchie

Head of English, Literacy Lead Teacher