Year 5 Speech and Year 6 Debate Competition 2019

As Nelson Mandela once said, “Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.”

As Nelson Mandela once said, “Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.” The students in Year 5 and 6 would agree with this after preparing, practising and perfecting their debates and speeches for this year’s competition.

The Year 5 Speech and Year 6 Debate Competition Final was held on February 28th. This was the culmination of much work on writing and delivering speeches and debates in Year 5 and 6.

Year 5

The 7 finalists in Year 5 competed against one another in an unbelievably close final. Every child delivered their speech confidently and the amount of time spent on them was evident. The judges had a very difficult job but in the end, Jolie was named the winner. Thank you to Ingrid, Martin, Joon, John, Avaan and Dani who made it such a tight competition.

If you're interested in seeing some of our Year 5 'Best of the Rest' speeches, you can watch them here:

Year 6

The Year 6 finalists prepared tirelessly with tremendous enthusiasm for the motion:

“Nurses and doctors should get paid more than professional footballers”.

They debated in front of a packed Gym. Their arguments were clearly well researched and made us think twice about our original thoughts. In the end, the team against the motion came out the winners by the narrowest of margins. Well done to Isaiah, Sam, Cyan and Caitlin! It was noted that Alex, Basile, Yi Chen and Phuong debated fiercely, with the standard being incredibly high. Finally, congratulations should go to all students in Year 5 and 6 for helping to make this year’s competition such a valuable learning experience.

Mr. John Handscombe and Mr. Jonathan Smith