Te Puke High School debaters do well in regional competition

Te Puke high school's year 10 debating team - from left, EJ Sigue, Whakaio Seymour and Mars Brown.

Liking a good argument is a good start to getting into a debating team.

Mars Brown is a novice, but was recently thrown in at the deep end as Te Puke High School's two junior debating teams spent a day at the Bay of Plenty regional championships.

"I've never done any [debating]," she says. "I've got into a few arguments but that's about it."

That's a bad thing - in fact it was one of the reasons she decided to give it a go.

"I've always loved arguing or trying to get my point across, so I thought I'd do debating."

With just two practices under her belt, she admits she was scared.

"I psyched myself out of it at first, but then talked to the teacher and said 'hey - can I still do it?'.

"My public speaking is really bad and my social skills are terrible. I joined it to improve that and could see improvement as I was going through the tournament."

Mars' teammates in the Year 10 team - EJ Sigue and Whakaio Seymour - were also new to the challenge, not that it showed with the team victorious in two of its debates against older teams.

The icing on the cake was EJ's selection in the national debating development team.

English teacher Sam Oldham says EJ was one of half a dozen students chosen from "a couple of hundred at least".

"It's a huge honour, especially for a junior student - we were absolutely thrilled," he says.

EJ says he thinks using emotive language and projecting his voice are his strengths.

"I think I need to work on some of my substance, but when I'm speaking, I say it confidently and I say it with emotion."

Whakaio says he thinks debating and public speaking are good life skills to have, especially in the workplace.

He says he feels he was a bit quiet at the start of the competition, but his confidence grew.

Te Puke High School's year 9 debating team - from left, Grace Bragg, Sebastian Rollinson and Hamish Paget.

With no age categories at the competition, the Year 9 team of Grace Bragg, Sebastian Rollinson and Hamish Paget found themselves against a Year 13 team in one debate.

"We thought that was so unfair," says teacher Sam, "but they did so incredibly well. We had a debrief at the end of the day, they had taken away some important skills."

Sebastian and Hamish were already friends and had done speech competitions at primary and intermediate schools.

"At primary school I went through to the regionals," says Sebastian, "but this was my first-ever debate.

"It was really fun, debating in general and trying to get your point across and trying to get the adjudicator to see your side of the debate."

The team was given a week to prepare for the first debate, with the moot 'this house would prohibit tax credits'.

But they were given just 30 minutes to prepare for the other debates.

"When they first said you've only got 30 minutes I just went 'oh no'," says Hamish.

"The second one, we did really well and we were very close to winning, where the moot was 'this house would dramatically reduce the amount of tourists we allow into New Zealand'."

Grace says as part of a leaders' camp last year, she visited Parliament and "I thought that was amazing".

"We had an academic decathlon last year and one of the things I went along to was debating - and I thought 'this is fun' and I was really in my element."

Social sciences teacher Trish Lawrence says healthy debate is something lacking in society and debating helps teach the thought processes needed to get points across without conflict.

"We are incredibly proud of them," she says. "They were probably nervous, but it's that pride that they get from competing and being involved, and we are excited to see where we go next with them."

"Hopefully this will be the roots of an ongoing debating society," says Sam.

Principal Alan Liddle says the school is proud of the teams.

"There were some awesome achievements, so credit goes to those students but also to the teachers who are involved."