Last Wednesday, eight boys from Years 9 and 10 competed in the ACC Intermediate Public Speaking and Debating Competition. Everyone was nervous; having worked tirelessly on our speeches, we hoped that they were good enough to win the competition. The added pressure came from the fact that we had won the same competition the previous year in the lower division, meaning this time we would be competing in Division 1.
When we arrived at Mazenod College, the nerves became real as we filed into their auditorium. After an introduction, the debaters and public speakers were asked to prepare for their first round of speeches. The debating team competed against St Bede’s first in a prepared debate, meaning that every last minute was spent preparing before the start of the day. After a very contentious debate, we ended up winning by four points, with Liam Kelly from Year 9 being the best speaker. It was a good start, but we couldn’t let a small win go to our heads. We then had two other debates, both with secret topics. The second debate was against St Bernard’s, with the topic “We should prohibit schools from giving students detention.” We were negative. After a much closer debate, we ended up winning by one point, with Liam Kelly again taking the best speaker award for that debate. With two wins, we went into the final round as the front runners. Our opponents were St Bede’s once more, who were now in second place. The secret topic was “We should ban advertisements of meat and dishes containing meat.” We were affirmative. Nerves took over as we tried to figure out what to argue in what we thought would be an unwinnable debate. The debate was very close in the end; however, the adjudicator could not give us any feedback and kept the winner a secret.
We went back to the common room and waited nervously for the results. In the end, we came first in debating. The team was ecstatic as we walked up to collect the flag. We were so pleased that all of our hard work had paid off. We would also like to acknowledge our public speakers who competed and presented incredibly well against tough competition. A huge thank you to Ms Hermon for organising the team, and to Ms Capomolla and Ms O’Shea, who came with us on the day.
Noah P
Year 10 Student
