05 February 2026
On Friday 16 January, twelve students from across the Senior School headed off to Melbourne on a three-day interstate debating competition. The event, aptly titled the ‘Debate of Origin’, saw our three teams of four fight with critical argument and formidable intellectualism against their experienced competitors, the Melbourne Grammar School and Anglican Church Grammar School debating students.
Across the three days, our students argued a number of highly topical and divisive questions facing our world today. These ranged from the value of the arts versus competitive sports, to the rise of streaming services; from the hypothetical dangers of an answer to immortality, to the ever-prevalent concerns over the rise of artificial intelligence. And if those topics weren’t difficult enough, the final day’s ‘fun round’ really pushed the students to question their most familiar topics, one notable example being ‘That Mario functioned as a stronger role model for the children of today than Taylor Swift.’
For most of our debaters, this competition was a very different experience from their typical debating competitions back home. For our Junior and Intermediate teams, with students spanning Years 7 to 9, this competition’s ‘secret topic’ format presented a unique challenge: to form a fully fledged three-speaker debating side on only 45 minutes of preparation. The secret topic style of debating, often reserved for high-level intermediate or senior divisions of the South Australian competition, was uncharted territory for our younger students, who are used to having weeks of preparation prior to a debate.
Despite the unfamiliar terrain, these students demonstrated their commitment to meeting this competition head-on with commendable enthusiasm and perseverance. Over the course of several weeks, they engaged in various debating practices, information seminars and political discussions, sacrificing valuable summer holiday time in the pursuit of workshopping their skills and strengthening their capacity for argumentation.
A special mention and congratulations go to Krish Grover (FLL, Year 7) who, accepting the challenge, presented impressively constructed and analytical speeches throughout the competition, receiving the award for ‘Best Speaker’ of all debaters in the Junior division. This is an incredible achievement for Krish, as well as fantastic recognition of the strength of debating talent currently developing across the SPSC Middle Years.
The students should all be commended for their consistent efforts across this trip; they demonstrated a high quality of critical thinking, a healthy competitiveness, and a commitment to improving their abilities at each point of the competition and its lead-up. Luckily the experience wasn’t all hard work, and their mental exertion across the three days was well counterbalanced (and rewarded) with nights of trivia, bowling and laser tag. There were also various opportunities to bond across year levels and across schools with the other debaters in attendance, strengthening friendships that are likely to last the remainder of their schooling journey. The students should be proud of the way in which they conducted themselves, upholding the values of truth, respect and service in their open-minded arguments and support for each other throughout the trip. We also thank staff members, Debra Knoop, Margaret Reid and Eton Williams for supporting the students across the three days of competitions and activities.
We anticipate the SPSC teams continuing to excel across the South Australian schools’ competition this year, and look forward to the Debate of Origin round to be held in Adelaide next year.
Eton Williams
Debating Coach
