Eisteddfod Time

Gunnedah Eisteddfod - Drama

For the first time, St Mary’s was able to prepare students for the Drama sections. Students competed in a wide range of sections and there were fantastic performances from all involved. Congratulations to all students who competed and worked hard to rehearse, giving up a lot of their own time.

Angus Johns - Mime 1st Place

Sienna Mitchell & Angus Johns - Duologue 1st Place

Sienna Mitchell - Year 9 Monologue 1st Place & Shakespeare Monologue 1st Place

Lily Maxwell & Bianca Pye - Year 11/12 Duologue 1st Place

William Higgins - Year 8 Monologue 1st Place, Year 7/8 Mime 1st Place & Year 7/8 Poetry 2nd Place

Tahnee Steele - Year 7/8 Poetry 1st Place

Alyssa Wise & Neiva Walton - Year 7/8 Duologue 1st Place

Tilly Gleeson - Year 7 Monologue 1st Place

We look forward to seeing even more students involved next year!

St Mary’s Debating Report

This term, debating started back up, and we were able to form both a stage 4 and 5 team, with our stage 5 team consisting of Riley Roden, Sienna Mitchell, myself and Angus Johns (in order of our speakers). Our topic for the debate was ‘artificial intelligence is going to destroy humanity’, and we were negative, with Holy Trinity in Inverell arguing on the affirmative side. We had many meetings throughout the second half of the term and were able to come up with many arguments, such as the helpfulness of artificial intelligence in medicine, as well as the safety it brings to vehicles, and how we can stop the development of AI whenever we want. The debate itself was tough with the opposition having a variety of strong arguments, but luckily for us and our strong rebuttals, we were able to come out with a win. Our next debate is on Friday of Week 2, Term 3, and we’re looking forward to getting more involved with debating.

-Clare Canham Yr 10

This semester the stage 4 debating team competed in their first debate. The topic for the debate is that technology is changing us for the better. However, they were the negative team so they believed that technology is changing us for the worse. Their first speaker Katie Spinks spoke about the lack of physical activity of young people because of technology. The second speaker Neiva Walton spoke about the effects technology has on our mental health and how it is making us antisocial. Finally, the third speaker Tilly Gleeson rebutted the affirmative team’s points and summarised the points given by her team. Unfortunately, even with their amazing arguments, they were defeated by Holy Trinity. I congratulate them on how well they prepared for their first high school debate and how they handled the situation. We would like to thank Mrs Walshe, who created our debate teams and assisted us with meetings and preparations for the debate. We would also like to thank Miss Vickers for setting up our debate zoom and making sure we were prepared. I know that the members of both teams are extremely excited for our next debate in Term 3, arguing that ‘The future of the world is online’.

- Sienna Mitchell Yr 9