Debating is very important to a child’s learning in that it teaches them to think analytically and at the same time to argue with style. Learning to put forward a suitable argument which is fully justified is a skill that needs to be taught. Each of the students in the school learns to write an Exposition text type which helps when developing a debate.

This year, an enthusiastic group of children tried out to be in the Sydney West Debating Team. Four children were chosen and will be attending the debating camp at Katoomba in Week 9. These children will go on to represent the school in the Western Sydney region at debating. The will be given a topic and one hour to prepare the debate in a lockdown situation, without teacher assistance. At the end of the hour they will be expected to present their debate in front of an unbiased adjudicator and an audience. As you can imagine, the skills involved in this are quite advanced.

As there were so many children wanting to be involved in debating, it has been decided that a team from each class will be trained to debate against each other, thus forming a mini competition. After the initial training, the children will be placed into lockdown situations of one hour to develop their debate. We are hoping to have these debates presented at our Stage assemblies during Term 2 and 3.