Debating

 

At Island School, we debate for numerous reasons, not least because we enjoy it.  Debating is an activity that develops our ability to look at a situation from different points of view, as well as our ability to listen and evaluate the views of others.  Through debating, students learn to reason, to question, to assimilate – all of which help us in our other pursuits.  Intellectual agility, teamwork and coolness under pressure are skills required to excel in debating and it is to these abilities that we attribute our success over the years.

 

Island School’s illustrious debating tradition started in the late 1970s when the debating society was founded by Paul Gillingham and a junior inter-house debating competition was initiated.  The inter-house tradition continued to run every year but it wasn’t until 1983-4 that we entered the annual inter-school competition, winning it in 1985, 1990, 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997. The late '80s saw a trio of victories in the Standard Debate (now renamed the Sing Tao Debating Competition), culminating in the 'double' in 1990. 

 

More recently, Island School has enjoyed great success in local competitions, winning the Junior Inter-school debate tournament in 2008.  In the senior debating scene, the Island School team reached the round of 16 in the prestigious Sing Tao Debating Competition this year, with Anais Ross and Deep Vaze receiving ‘best speaker’ awards en route.   Aside from inter-school competitions, the Debating activity is running as strongly as ever under the guidance of Mr. Trump.  The club’s weekly meetings feature in-house debates between students from all years.

The ‘Model United Nations’ society has also been highly active and successful at Island School.  MUN involves students playing the roles of UN delegates under UN rules of debate.  Of late the team has achieved tremendous success at the HKMUN conferences, winning the title of ‘Outstanding Delegation’ as North Korea and Somalia in 2009 and 2010 respectively. 

 

Anais Ross won ‘Outstanding Speaker’ in 2009 and Claudia Lo won it at the 2010 event. Looking forward, the prospects for Island School in both Debating and MUN look bright.  Both societies are made up of extremely enthusiastic students from all years who are no doubt keen to continue our winning tradition.

 

Hong Kong Model Untied Nations site - here

 

Deep Vaze 12N