Debating

The IPSHA Debating Competition was cancelled in Term 3 after only 3 debates face-to-face. This was not the news we were hoping to hear. The Debating Team decided it was time to take the debates online and continue the IPSHA Competition between Team A and Team B.

Our first online debate was between Orlando, Nathan, Oliver and William who debated the affirmative on the topic of “That parents should not allow their children access to the internet unless it is for school “against Aiden, Jeremiah, James and Marcus who were on the negative side. Whilst we had some technical difficulties getting our first one started, the boys did an excellent job of demonstrating resilience and the debate went to the negative side.

The second debate was between Aiden, Jeremiah, Marcus and James who debated the affirmative against Orlando, Oliver, Nathan and William on the topic “That we should ban having birds as pets”. This debate came down to why people should have pets, mental health benefits, animal cruelty and diseases that pet birds may carry. In the end, the debate was awarded to the affirmative side.

Our final debate of the term was between Nathan and Orlando who debated for the affirmative against the negative team that included Samedh, James, Aiden and Ryder on “Only modern books should be used to teach English in schools.” We were very lucky to have Mrs Taylor join us as a guest adjudicator for this debate. In the end, the debate was awarded to the negative team.

The debating team have done an excellent job at continuing to build their debating skills whilst working remotely. For the remainder of the term, they have taken on leadership roles with the House Debating Co-curricular where they will support the students within their house before our House Debating Competition next term.

Abigail Nel | MIC Debating