Welcome to what promises to be an exciting year of debating for our BGGS students. There are several opportunities for Girls Grammar debaters in 2021. Both the Queensland Debating Union (QDU) and Brisbane Girls Debating Association (BGDA) competitions offer a robust season of debating in Terms 1 and 2. Although the Year 7 Brisbane Girls Junior Debating competition will not be available this year, the BGGS Interhouse Debating Challenge for Year 7 students has been moved to Term 2 and will provide an enjoyable introduction to debating for our younger students. This will then be followed by the QDU Year 7 competition in Term 3.
Our senior students will still have the opportunity to participate in a number of debating competitions, including the State Team trials, which commence next week. The Australian Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championship (AIDPSC), will also be held in Sydney in the September holidays, and mooting preparation for Years 10, 11 and 12 students will begin in Term 2.
This Sunday 7 February, BGGS is hosting a training day organised by the BGDA Executive for students in Years 10 to 12 to refine and develop their debating skills. The girls have already been notified about this opportunity via email and further information can be found on the Debating page on Minerva.
This year, QDU has limited the number of teams that each school is permitted to enter into the competition. Therefore the School may need to hold trials in Week 3 for places in these teams, depending on the number of girls interested. However, to ensure all girls in Years 8 to 10 who wish to debate are provided with the opportunity to do so, we have secured enough team places in the BGDA competition for all interested debaters. This is the first year that the BGDA have offered training, workshops and debates for Year 8.
A comparison of the two competitions can be found on the Debating page on Minerva. All teams are coached by experienced coaches once a week and will receive the same standard of preparation, allowing future movement between competitions. The debates in the BGDA competition are all short preparation format—a format that has been adopted by the QDU competition for 50 per cent of all debates.
For further information, please do not hesitate to contact me via abyrne@bggs.qld.edu.au.
Ms Anne Byrne
Debating Coordinator
