Five Ross Hill Public School students have argued with the state’s best.
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The team, nicknamed the ‘Ross Hill Rebutters’, finished 10th out of 766 teams at the State Premiers’ debating challenge in Sydney this month.
Brock Holder, Zac Campbell, Sam Flood and Kobee Luxford represented the North West region, with Brock taking on Lachlan Hampton’s first speaker position.
“I honestly believe that these five children, they will be the children that we’ll hear of in the future,” coach Catherine Lyell said.
She said the local debaters performed well, especially considering the high level of competition they were up against.
“We were competing against Sydney schools.
“Some of them competed 24 times to get to that level,” she said.
“It’s been a team effort to get to where they are”.
Although Ross Hill didn’t win any of their state competition debates, Catherine said the students showed great teamwork and received positive feedback from the adjudicators.
She said their “crowning glory” was the very close debate against Griffith, who went on to win the competition.
“[The adjudicators said] it was one of the best debates they’d seen over the two days,” Catherine said proudly.
The team debated on a wide range of topics, including exclusive schools for smart kids, exercise, song lyrics and alcohol.
“We put up a good fight”.
In particular, Sam and Zac showed strong rebuttal skills and adjudicator Tony Davey commended Brock for focusing on “what mattered”.
Kobee kept the team together as team advisor.
Catherine said the competition was an amazing experience for the year six students and that she was proud of the whole team.
She thanked Inverell for their support.
“You will hear more about this debating team in the future"