THE Hastings Public School ‘Opinionators’ proved to be amongst the best primary school debaters in NSW.
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The team of Kayle Enfield, Oliver Barry, Kodi Perrot, Hannah Stewart and Charlotte Mansfield competed at the Premier’s Debating Challenge State Championships held at Stanwell Tops last week.
They were joined by 40 of their peers who had also won their respective regions.
The first debate on Monday morning was against Hamilton South Public School, with Hastings managing to convince the adjudicator, on the topic that homework should be banned for all school students, that homework is necessary.
They were then treated to an amazing experience, according to teacher Karl Morris.
“Each were harnessed into a 18m high swing and catapulted off the edge of a cliff with amazing views across the Royal National Park and over the pacific ocean, which was a great way to invigorate the brain ready for the afternoon debates,” he said.
On Monday afternoon the team debated against Dubbo South Public School. They were again negative for the topic that sportspeople who take drugs should be banned for life and were successful.
However they were unable to convince the adjudicator in their next debate that a ban should go forward for Pokemon Go. It meant that their Tuesday afternoon debate was a must win and after some hectic peddle kart competitions the debate was on.
The topic was that we should ban parents form smacking their children. As the negative team, Hastings was able to establish the need for smacking to remain as a suitable punishment for certain offences (despite not necessarily agreeing ethically).
“It was a fantastic debate and for me, the best debate they conducted throughout the entire year,” Mr Morris said.
After a rigorous count back system was applied, Hastings placed equal-second and debated in the semi-finals on Tuesday night.
The topic for this debate was that we should ban all children under 18 from working as models.
“As the affirmative team we were unable to prove that this change should occur and as such were defeated and eliminated from the competition,” Mr Morris said.
“I am extremely of the team for the way they conducted themselves throughout the entire debating season and of course for doing so well, placing equal third in NSW out of the 776 teams who entered this year’s competition.”