The semi-final debates between Ōhoka 3 and Ōhoka 4 and Loburn versus Ashgrove were two of the best that we have seen in this competition over the past few years.

The audience was in awe at the ability of these young people to fully research their topic, to include humour, and speak with amazing confidence to a crowd of around 50 supporters. The interjections were many and the audience was fully engaged and were entertained for the whole evening. 

Congratulations to both of our teams - Ben, Helena, Ruby, Sophie, Jasmine and Emmerson. You were amazing and gave us a debate that was worthy of being in the final. Ben's interjection about patience being a good lesson to learn was definitely the "interjection of the night!"

The Ōhoka versus Ōhoka semi-final resulted in our Ōhoka 3 debating team successfully making it through to the final of the North Canterbury Primary Schools Debating competition for 2020. This is a real achievement in a very tough competition that started out with 23 teams. Congratulations Ben, Helena and Ruby! 

Thanks to John Lynn and Niki Mealings for judging these debates. They certainly had their work cut out! Thanks also to Isabella for chairing both debates. 

We are in for an amazing final debate against Ashgrove School at Ashgrove on Thursday evening 24 September. The moot is, “That music is the world's first language” and we have the positive side of the moot. It should be a very interesting and entertaining final!