On Thursday May 4, St Bernard’s competed in the ACC Debating and Public Speaking Tournament, the inaugural Open event for any year level. – very exciting initiative by the ACC, especially as our senior speakers have historically stopped competitive speech tournaments at the end of Year 10.
We fielded two debating teams of six speakers each, (in the same division unfortunately) and one team of four public speakers. It was a very enjoyable yet nerve-wracking day for all involved, but the reward and experience were worth it.
Our debaters prepared the topic for the first debate, ‘That the government should ban the purchasing of property for investment.’ With two teams, one preparing each case, the affirmative and negative, we were able to run mock debates in the lead up, which proved helpful.
The two teams also prepared for the advised topic of ‘education’, preparing for a range of possibilities, with the topic eventually being ‘That schools should not teach history older than 70 years.’ This second-round saw St Bernard’s One debate drawn to compete against St Bernard’s Two, and as luck would have it, St Bernard’s One, won!
The final debate of the day, was a totally secret topic, and with only 30 minutes to prepare, both teams argued the affirmative, ‘That criminals should not be allowed to publish books or movies about their crimes.’
At the end of the day, our debaters really enjoyed the opportunity to compete with other students and are proud of their efforts and their placing. Congratulations to:
St Bernard’s College One:
Felix O’Kane Yr 12
Samuel Scodella Yr 11
Lucas Ciavarella Yr 10
Patrick Currie Yr 10
Hayden McDonald Yr 10
Xavier Spehar Yr 10
St Bernard’s College Two:
Vincent Dong Yr 11
Jakob Glenk Yr 11
William Hellwig Yr 11
Jack MacMillan Yr 11
Lucas McKinnon Yr 11
Suny Trimboli Yr 11
Our public speakers competed in two rounds, a prepared and an impromptu.
Firstly, a prepared 6-minute speech on a variety of different topics for the judge’s consideration – from the plight of Millennials as opposed to Gen Z, to the need to make teaching of tax preparation and economics compulsory to Year 12, the importance of knowing your learning style, and calling for change to our educational system.
In the second round, the public speakers had five minutes to prepare an impromptu speech on unseen topics – a real challenge. The choices of prompts were:
Overall, our four public speakers presented very well, and in the impromptu round showed flair and humour in their presentations.
Congratulations to:
Jhonathan Andres Yr 9
Kristian Vorrias Yr 9
Edward Heath Yr 12
Nicholas Kabiotis Yr 12
All of our students, both debaters and public speakers, are to be congratulated for putting their hand up to represent the College. We are very proud for fielding so many competitors and grateful for their time and effort prior to and on the day of the event.
Special thanks to Mr Carlos Tinsey, Mr Sean Pieper and Ms Siobhan Loukomitis for their organisation and support of the students.
