12 Sep 2012
This year Chester Hill Public School has entered a team in the Premier's Debating Challenge. The students have been practicing their debating skills by participating in a school competition. In Term 2 they participated in their first competitive debates.
The competition is quite difficult with students receiving the topic on the day and having only an hour to prepare their argument.
The first debate was against St Johns Park Public School. The topic for the debate was ‘we should get rid of school uniforms'. The toss of a coin decided that we would be the negative team.
The students were nervous about their first debate but felt confident. Farhad, Zeeshaan and Kathy spoke well and put forward some excellent arguments. Lan, acting as the team advisor, provided the rebuttals. Chester Hill was announced as the winner and the students were very excited.
The second debate was against Smithfield Public School. The topic was that ‘parents should not allow their children to use social media websites'. The students provided some convincing arguments and again they were pronounced the winners.
In the third debate, against Fairfield Public School, the topic was ‘the Australian flag should be changed'. Our students were the negative team, saying that our flag should remain the same. We won this debate, meaning that our team will now progress to the next round of the competition.
We wish the debaters luck in round two.