During the September School holidays, eight students travelled to Melbourne for four days to compete in the Australian Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championships (AIDPSC). Year 10 students, Jillian Campbell (10O), Abigail King (10R), Trish Le (10R) and Sierra Reza (10H), competed in the SPEAKFEST division. While Year 11 students, Tiarne Graves (11L), Abbey Grice (11E), Saee Sane (11O) and Lara Triscott (11H), competed in the senior AIDPSC division.
Both of these competitions consisted of four separate speaking, reading and debating divisions. All students presented in each division twice over two days (a total of eight performances) followed by grand finals for the top performers in each category.
Sierra Reza (10H) won the overall SPEAKFEST Grand Championship Trophy, winning both the Debating and Persuasive Speaking categories. Jillian Campbell (10O) was awarded Runner-up in the SPEAKFEST competition, and won the Interpretative Reading category. Tiarne Graves (11L) also emerged as a Runner-up in the AIDPSC competition and was awarded a medal for the Persuasive Speaking category.
On the basis of her accumulated performance scores, Abbey Grice (11E) was selected in the Australian team to travel to Shanghai in April next year for the World Championships. Abbey also won the SPEAKFEST competition in 2018.
Congratulations to all competitors on their excellent preparation and exceptional results.
Mrs Anne Byrne
Debating Coordinator
Back Row: Jillian Campbell (10O), Abigail King (10R), Lara Triscott (11H), Saee Sane (11O) and Trish Le (10R); Front Row: Sierra Reza (10H), Abbey Grice (11E) and Tiarne Graves (11L)
