On Thursday November, Australian Disputes Centre hosted its 10th annual Schools Debating Competition. We were honoured to be joined by 42 participating students from 9 different independent and government schools. All students participated in three rounds of both debating and impromptu speaking throughout the day, and our organisers and judges were consistently very impressed by the high standard of speaking from all participating students.
This year, ADC introduced an exciting new one-day format for the competition, which was held in-person at our chambers in the Sydney CBD, making the ADC Schools Debating Competition one of the only intensive one-day competitions held in Sydney for high school level debaters.
Additionally, unlike most debating competitions for high school students, the ADC Schools Debating Competition allocates participants into teams with students from a mix of different schools. This offers our participants a unique opportunity to develop their ability to work effectively in teams with students from a diverse range of backgrounds. We commend all our participants for how well they adapted to debating with teammates they had only met that morning, and for the strong sense of enthusiasm and team spirit all participants demonstrated throughout the day.
ADC congratulates the overall Winning Team of the competition, who impressed our esteemed Grand Final judges with their excellent speaking. The members of the winning team included Joohee Um (Tara Anglican School for Girls), Beatrix Fattorini (Burwood Girls’ High School) and Melanie Phan (Baulkham Hills High School). We particularly congratulate Bonnie Zhang (Ravenswood School for Girls) for being both a member of the winning team and the overall Best Speaker of the debating competition.
Congratulations also go to the winner of the Impromptu Speaking Competition Grand Final, Lilah Schut (Ravenswood School for Girls), who impressed our judges with her eloquence and confidence when approaching the challenge of delivering unprepared speeches.
We sincerely thank all our volunteer student judges and organisers for offering their time and effort to put on such an exciting and high-quality competition, as well as all teachers who took time to supervise participants throughout the day. We particularly were honoured to be joined by an esteemed panel of judges for our Grand Final, which included The Hon. Terry Sheahan AO, leading Alternative Dispute Resolution expert Geri Ettinger and barrister Naomi Oreb from Banco Chambers, who as a University debater was awarded ‘Best Speaker’ at both the Australasian and World Universities Debating Championships. Thank you to our stellar panel of Grand Final judges for generously offering their time and expertise to the competition and all our participants.