Senior Debating

Senior Debating Report 

We finished regional debating on a high with three of our teams making it through to the preliminary finals held at Lowther Hall on Wednesday 21 of August. All the teams were nervous, but thoroughly prepared so had nothing to lose. To make it this far was quite an achievement as it meant they had all finished on top of the ladder.

The B grade debate was on an unseen topic which was announced an hour before the actual debate. On the affirmative side, Exequiel Solis, Patrick Shaw, Matthew Wos had to argue that we should have a quota for people under 30 in parliament. They performed exceptionally, but were defeated by a very experienced team from St Bernards.

The D grade team, Khang Nguyen, Hachi Dinh and Sarah Liu supported by Nandana Premjit and Sarah Vo also on the affirmative, came up against Buckley Park and had to argue that compulsory Science should replace compulsory English in schools. They performed exceptionally well too, but the adjudicator gave the debate to Buckley Park.

Our C grade team who argued against compulsory paternity leave had a stunning victory against Xavier College and they now go on to the next round which will be held on Wednesday 4 September at Northcote High School. We are waiting for the draw to be released to know the opponents and the topic but we wish them well.

To top off the season, It was announced on Friday 23 August that Sarah Liu of year 9 won the swannie award for D grade. This is an outstanding achievement. Sarah is invited to receive her award on the 18th October at the Swannie ceremony in MLC. The Swannie Awards are named after Alan Swanwick, a long-time member of the DAV and a pioneer of debating in Victoria. “Swannies” are awarded to the speaker in each region and grade who has the highest average speaker score after completing at least three debates during the year. The average is calculated solely on speaker scores, and is not affected by the best speaker awards that are announced at the end of each debate.

Congratulations to all senior debaters for a stunning season. Junior debating is under way and we look forward to some equally exciting challenges.

Janet McKenzie

Staff Development Coordinator