AtTAC’em players debate team members Anna Swney, left, Yasmeen Ibrahim and Eva Watton, right, with Te Awamutu College’s debate club captain Avleen Kaur. Saraiah Hongara is absent. Photo: Jeremy Smith
There’s no arguing – Te Awamutu College are the Waikato secondary school junior debate competition champions.
The team, called ‘AtTAC’em’, (pronounced ‘attack ‘em’), made up of Saraiah Hongara, Anna Swney, Yasmeen Ibrahim and Eva Watton beat a Hillcrest High School team called The Avengers in the final.
Now, they have set their sights set on even higher honours – next year’s nationals.
At the Waikato championships, the college team lost only one debate throughout the two-month event, beating teams including Cambridge High School, Hamilton Boys’ High School and Rototuna High School on their way to victory.
There were five roundrobin type debating rounds before the semi-finals and finals – AtTAC’em players’ only loss in those rounds coming against a St Peter’s Cambridge team called ‘Biased But The ‘I’ is Silent’.
The two teams in fact met again in the semifinals, with AtTAC’em able to turn the tables.
In a debate, there are two sides to any argument – the affirmative side where a team argues for a topic, and the negative side in which a team argues against it.
Interestingly, Anna said she noticed a trend as the championships progressed.
“Our strength definitely appeared to be representing the negative side of an argument. I think the only round we lost was when we were affirmative,” she smiled.
Anna said one of the reasons she enjoys debating is because it requires thinking critically on the spot.
Te Awamutu College’s teacher in charge of the debate club Jared Wooldridge said he couldn’t be prouder.
“This is just the third year of having the debate club here at school and we have about 30 students,” he told The News.
He said AtTAC’em team members have varying levels of debate experience, but all have a common thread.
Subjects like speech making at school have always been each of the team member’s strengths, he said.
“The win was brilliant, and from my point of view it was fantastic to see how the team grew in confidence and got better and better as the competition went on,” Wooldridge said.
The college’s debate club captain Avleen Kaur agreed.
“Debating is great because it teaches you a broad range of skills,” she said.
