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NSW Schools Debating 2021

DebatingNerd

Allen Oxlade (6)
State Squads aren't out yet however the following are callbacks, they will trial on the 30th and 31th of March. Pretty sure Daniel Yim (WSDC Aus Captain) and Ellie Stephenson (NSDC NSW State Team) are in charge of NSWDU this year.

Callback List:
Abrar Chowdhury (Year 10, SBHS)
Aidan Woo (Year 12, Grammar)
Aimee Bulliman (Year 11, SHHS)
Alex Bako (Year 12, Kambala)
Alex Garmen-Christensen (Year 12, SGHS)
Anjali Lambotharan (Year 11, Abbotsleigh)
Ariane Varnava (Year 12, SGHS)
Auguste McNally (Year 12, SBHS)
Brendon Chen (Year 12, Grammar)
Caitie Bako (Year 11, Kambala)
Charlie Henry (Year 11, Riverview)
Darshanik Aryal (Year 10, James Ruse)
Dhruv Hariharan (Year 12, Knox)
Ethan Tan (Year 11, Shore)
Iris Lee (Year 12, St Ives)
Jack Glass (Year 11, Grammar)
Jack Story (Year 11, Grammar)
Jade Di Girolamo (Year 11, MLC)
Kevin Lee (Year 12, James Ruse)
Mehnaaz Hossain (Year 12, SGHS)
Neva Mikulic (Year 11, SGHS)
Ruby Livingston (Year 11, Queenwood)
Thomas Zheng (Year 12, SBHS)
Tim Hanna (Year 11, SBHS)
Toby Mok (Year 11, Grammar)

This list is finally complete, thanks to some help from Shipnotsinking, thank you!
But at the moment, SGHS has the most people in callbacks followed by SBHS which is quite typical of these two powerhouses.
There are 2 Year 10's and quite a few Year 11's which is quite interesting as there were a few upsets as a few people in first grade at powerhouse schools got didn't get chosen. So I guess there's quite a bit of younger talent upcoming which should make the 2022 and 2023 seasons quite interesting to say the least!

Picks for ISDA, Eastside, PDC, Archdale, CSDA and GPS?
 

DebatingNerd

Allen Oxlade (6)
Grammar has a lot of Year 11's in callbacks this year which means they should have a particularly strong team next year. Look out for them in 2022!

By the way, has State Squad come out yet? Please let the forum know by posting as soon as they do.
 

DebatingNerd

Allen Oxlade (6)
The Round Robins for ISDA finish on the 23rd of April, after the school holidays. But here's some info on the competition:

Up until Round 6 the Senior A results are as follows for each bracket.

Bracket 1 (Queenwood, Brigidine, Tangara, Aloysius, Barker, Grammar, Knox, Kings):
Queenwood - 0
Brigidine - 3
Tangara - 0
Aloysius - 4
Barker - 3
Grammar - 6
Knox - 3
Kings - 4

Bracket 2 (SCEGGS, MLC, Riverview, Ascham, Redlands, Trinity, Newington, Joeys):
SCEGGS - 4
MLC - 4
Riverview - 5
Ascham - 1
Redlands - 2
Trinity - 1
Newington - 4
Joeys - 2

Bracket 3 (Scots, Pymble, Loretto Kirribilli, St Andrews, Wenona, Roseville, Abbotsleigh, St Lukes):
Scots - 5
Pymble - 3
Loretto Kirribilli - 4
St Andrews - 1
Wenona - 1
Roseville - 2
Abbotsleigh - 3
St Lukes - 5

Bracket 4 (Ravenswood, PLC, Kincoppal, Cranbrook, Monte, Kambala, Shore, St Catherines)
Ravenswood - 0
PLC - 2
Kincoppal - 2
Cranbrook - 6
Monte - 4
Kambala - 3
Shore - 4
St Catherines - 1


Round 7 matchups of Round Robin for each bracket is below:

Bracket 1:
Tangara v Queenwood
Barker v Brigidine
Knox v St Aloysius
Kings v Grammar

Bracket 2:
Riverview v SCEGGS
Redlands v MLC
Newington v Ascham
Trinity v St Josephs

Bracket 3:
Loreto Kirribilli v Scots
Wenona v Pymble
Abbotsleigh v St Andrew's
St Luke's v Roseville

Bracket 4:
Kincoppal v Ravenswood
PLC Sydney v Monte
Shore v Cranbrook
St Catherine's v Kambala



Predictions for Round 7, Octos, Quarters, Semis and Grand Final?
 

thatWasToSay

Stan Wickham (3)
Predictions for Round 7, Octos, Quarters, Semis and Grand Final?


Looks like the group stage is more or less done. Two undefeated teams Grammar and Cranbrook surely have to be up there as contenders. Grammars 6 looks marginally better than Cranbrooks, coming in a slightly tougher pool.

Scots and Riverview also looking strong on 5 wins could make for an interesting GPS season with a few strong schools (and you can usually throw high in there as well). St Lukes is also worth mentioning here on 5 wins, not traditionally a strong school, but looks to have a strong team this year.

The Octos tend to give pretty one sided match ups for the top teams who are contending to win the comp. Two potentially interesting Octos though.

B1 v C4 - Reigning GPS Premiers View are looking likely to top Group B, however traditionally strong Abbotsleigh are in a bit of a fight to make it out of Group C. If they end up finishing 4th, that's a tough draw for View in an Octo after winning their group. Potentially see the group winners out early? Would be an interesting debate, but I suspect Riverview would manage to get through given their stronger form in the group stages.

D1 v A4 - Cranbrook undefeated will finish top of Group D, but Group A has a lot of depth and it appears Barker ('18 Finalists) or Knox ('19 Winners) will be their opponents in the Octo. Those are strong schools, who might be better than their win totals suggest given the tough group. I could very much see an upset here!

Will be interesting to see once Round 7 and the makeup round are over how the bracket pans out, to be able to make predictions more concretely.
 

DebatingNerd

Allen Oxlade (6)
Pretty sure Grammar doesn't do WUDC...

By the way, does anyone have any results on Eastside? I'm not really in the loop for that competition either but knowing its results is pretty interesting because it does have SBHS and SGHS in it and I lowkey wanna see how they're faring. Especially SGHS because they didn't get anyone into the state squad this year which is quite weird and uncharacteristic of the traditional powerhouse.
 

DebatingNerd

Allen Oxlade (6)
Any updates from the Eastside comp?
Also, I have heard rumours about the GPS competition returning back to its old way of delivering verdicts for debates with a panel of adjudicators. Can anyone confirm the legitimacy of this?

If this is true, we shouldn't be seeing a lot of the upsets and robberies we have seen happen in recent years, especially with High and Grammar losing to Newington, Shore. etc, etc. If it actually happens we should see an increase the quality of the competition.
 

thatWasToSay

Stan Wickham (3)
Any updates from the Eastside comp?
Also, I have heard rumours about the GPS competition returning back to its old way of delivering verdicts for debates with a panel of adjudicators. Can anyone confirm the legitimacy of this?

If this is true, we shouldn't be seeing a lot of the upsets and robberies we have seen happen in recent years, especially with High and Grammar losing to Newington, Shore. etc, etc. If it actually happens we should see an increase the quality of the competition.


Good news on the (possible) return of panels.

Final round of ISDA tomorrow (apart from the makeup round).

Group A is looking very interesting.

Grammar will go through on 6/7 wins, and then 4 schools fighting for the remaining 3 spots.

Barker (3 wins, +1 margin, v Brigidine)
Aloysius(4 wins, +6 margins, v Knox)
Knox(3 wins, +4 margins, v Aloys, v Queenwood)
Kings(4 wins, +0 margins, v Grammar)

The result of the Knox v Aloys debate will be very interesting, not only for this group but also looking forward to CAS.

Unless Barker loses to Brigidine, or Knox loses both their remaining debates, someone on 4 wins is going to have to miss out which is always harsh. Kings is looking like the unlucky school, with net 0 margins and a tough debate against Grammar to finish. There's still a lot of permutations, but that would be my pick.


Group C also has something of a fight. Scots and St Lukes will break. Abbotsleigh, Loretto and Pymble are fighting for the last two spots.

Loretto (4 wins, +3 margins, v Scots)
Abbotsleigh (3 wins, +2 margins, v St Andrews)
Pymble (3 wins, +1 margins, v Wenona)

Loretto has a very tough debate to finish off, but already has the wins and the margin advantage, whilst Abbotsleigh and Pymble have very winnable debates. If Abbotsleigh and Pymble win while Loretto loses, Loretto will probably then lose out on Margins. Once again, 3 different debates so a lot of different win and margin permutations, but my pick would be all 3 ending up on 4 wins and Loretto missing out on margins.
 

DebatingNerd

Allen Oxlade (6)
Is this really true? I've heard rumours that the grammar team is just overcoached and all privately tutored by Daniel Yim.


Yes it is true, the school literally hit the cap for members in the state debating squad. Also according to my sources, Aidan Woo (Year 12, Grammar) would've made the state squad as he had the required amount of speaker points, however did not as the NSW squad/team coaches decided to place a 4-man cap on Grammar, as there are 12 people in the squad.
 

DebatingNerd

Allen Oxlade (6)
Chief Adjudicator for ISDA this year is James Pacino. They were the Chief Adjudicator of CAS last year. I’d agree the topics haven’t been stellar this year - but topic quality in ISDA has been going down for a while.


I truly would appreciate an example of one of these bad topics in ISDA I am hearing so often about in this forum.

Also, I've gotten my hands on a petition to get Adjudicator Panels back in GPS, try sign it and send it on to other people who actually care about NSW Schools Debating: http://chng.it/WFgDHdT4wV
 

Halfback4Lyfe

Frank Row (1)
Brendon Chen is the rightful captain of this team not Alex Bako.

This is the FIRST TIME in NSW History that a returning speaker of a National Champion team has not gotten Captaincy. Chen is the only returning speaker from the 2020 National Champion team and Bako is not since she was reserve team. Returning national champion speakers 100% of the time get captaincy over reserves - Ally Pitt, Dan Yim, Eden Blair, Imogen Harper, James Stratton are recent examples of this, even Andrew O’Keefe back in 1989. See https://nswdu.com/index.php/history/ .

Chen’s ‘Vice-Captain’ role is to cushion and hide the fact he was denied his Captaincy - simply because he goes to Grammar. Shameful anti-Grammar bias in this political, non-merit decision.

DebatingNerd, what’s the State Team cap per school? I’m now hearing rumours it is actually 2 per school. Can you confirm?

(a) the vice captain role doesn’t exist
(b) if you care about merit based decisions why would you insist the captaincy is decided based on a tradition?
(c) this kind of trolling is unfair on the debaters involved who are obviously all pretty good if they’re on the state team - I’m sure they’ll prove themselves solidly come NSDC
 

DebatingNerd

Allen Oxlade (6)
Don’t think the vice captain thing is true, bit cringe to make that up and cringer still to have a rant about it!

This is the deleted rant referred to by Halfback4Lyfe which was posted by Shipnotsinking at 9:45am on the 26/04/2021:
Screenshot (469).png
 

DebatingNerd

Allen Oxlade (6)
(a) the vice captain role doesn’t exist
(b) if you care about merit based decisions why would you insist the captaincy is decided based on a tradition?
(c) this kind of trolling is unfair on the debaters involved who are obviously all pretty good if they’re on the state team - I’m sure they’ll prove themselves solidly come NSDC


(a) Halfback4Lyfe, just to clarify, the vice-captain role was introduced into the state team this year by the NSWDU. While I cannot draw a conclusion as to why it was introduced in particular, I do not believe that it was against the best interests of our State's performance at the National Schools Debating Championships as I am sure that Daniel, Ellie and the rest of the coaches who run the team have our state's best interests at heart. As after all, they themselves debated for our state/nation and understand the drive to succeed at the NSDC and WSDC. While I wish not to entertain Shipnotsinking's quite polarising claims about the nature of the vice-captaincy, I will say this. To validate their claims, we must wait and see as to whether NSWDU actually continues to give out the roles in the future. This is because if it is just for this year, there is probably some extent of legitimacy behind Shipnotsinking's claims.

(b) This is a fair point, and I will say this, do not shun the competency of the other debaters in the state squad. From my sources, I have heard that Alex Bako is a brilliant debater in her own right and that she has superb oratory skills. I am sure that while Grammar has boys on par with her, there was probably some justification for the NSWDU's ultimate decision and I will respect that decision as they have steered us and established us as the most successful state at the National Schools Debating Championships. And by the way, I am sure that Alex and Brendon will lead our team to yet another National Premiership.

(c) I've pretty much responded to this earlier in this post.
 

sada supremacy

Frank Row (1)
Absolutely gobsmacked to see what people are happy to say about literal children once they have the safety of an online mask...

@Shipnotsinking is going after a bunch of students who haven't done anything wrong. To think that even if you believed this you wouldn't have the common decency to keep your opinions to yourself instead of publicly shaming kids and volunteers!!!!! (I suppose you were right to delete your initial cowardly post but you didn't really redeem yourself by replacing it with basically the same thing with the modality and entitlement cranked up a notch)

I shiver to think about what kind of deap sea creature sense of morality or inflated sense of deluded authority it takes to post this kind of nonsense. If you are so enraged by the team, certain that you would have made a better decision and confident that this is so important, why don't you talk to the coaches yourself? I checked that history link you posted and I'm sure two coaches who won every single national championship they attended could explain it to you!!!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely terrible and horrendous post.

The person behind it needs to examine themself.

The amount of anti-good faith bias in this thread is ridiculous and has now reached a breaking point.
 
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