Armidale Secondary College may only have formed this year - but it's produced the state champions in debating.
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Four students - Ella Vu in Year 10, and Rubi Ainsworth, Casey Rainger, and Fynn Eastwood in Year 9 - won the NSW Premier's Debating Challenge (Year 9 & 10) in Sydney earlier this month.
That debating trophy is the new school's first in any field, and the first time a regional school has won the state debating competition in more than 30 years.
"I'm shocked the the year of the merger was when we had our championship team," Rubi said. "That's symbolic!"
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The Armidale debaters faced Orange High School at the NSW Department of Education's Parramatta headquarters on Monday, November 11. The last time two regional schools made it to the finals was in the 1980s.
Topic: That we should ban employers from ever firing employees for expressing their personal beliefs; Armidale was the rebuttal.
The topic was the second choice for both teams. "We spent the first 15 minutes wondering what we were actually debating for," Rubi admitted - but coach Fiona Smee said the team had did a good job of attacking the complex subject.
"Everyone spoke the best that they have in any debate this entire year," Ms Smee said.
The teams debated in front of nearly 120 people - far more than the usual half-dozen they were used to. Most of the audience were experienced debaters from Sydney schools, knocked out in earlier rounds of the competition.
Walking through the auditorium before the debate and seeing the numbers of empty seats was daunting, Rubi said - but the team were too busy concentrating on the cut and thrust of debate to feel stage fright.
Victory, Casey said, felt surreal. "I think we all just dug in, and did our bit. We were pretty ecstatic afterwards!"
Team members were pleased with how they worked as a team - and satisfied to beat the Sydney schools.
The team celebrated their win with an extra night in Parramatta soaking up city life, a swim in the hotel pool, and rewatching the debate on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/372283951).
The team will continue debating next year. "We have to defend our title!" Casey said.
Ella will go to Sydney next week as a New England representative in the Junior State Debating Championships. The region's other representatives come from Uralla, Tenterfield, and Quirindi.
The team thanked Ms Smee for her help.
"It's a great opportunity for us to build ties with schools for the future and other debating situations," the coach said. "Considering all the upheaval that we've had this year and and last year, it's amazing that we've been able to pull together and and have such success."
The NSW Premier's Debating Challenge began in 1953 as an annual debating competition for Sydney north shore high schoolers; it is now open to government schools throughout the state. 377 teams entered this year.