In 2021, St Thomas’ was able to organize a group of 8 strong senior debaters to represent the school in the various debating events held across the region. This group had been together for several years prior to this and was well experienced in competitive debating prior to the competitions.

We had a great year competing in the weekly Canterbury Schools’ Debating rounds and the Regional Championships, but the highlights of the year were undoubtedly the Catholic Schools Bishop Lyons Competition and the Regional Impromptu Championships. The group was fortunate enough that an old boy of the College, Daniel Fogarty, was kind enough to donate his time to coach the group prior to and during these events. Dan taught us many great skills and techniques that we applied in our debates. This resulted in some impressive results being produced by our team.

At the Catholic School’s Bishop Lyons’ Competition, our competitive team (Alex McCorkindale, Joseph Costas and Xavier Anisy) performed well and qualified for the finals unbeaten. This team represented the school with pride and were unlucky to lose a close debate final in a split decision adjudication. Our second team (Tristan Reiha, Josh Castro and Eli Muir) also performed very well and would have been placed in the top four on their results but unfortunately they were not part of the official competition.

The other great highlight of the year was the Regional Impromptu Championships. The group was new to impromptu debating and had to adjust to the different format of two member teams and 5 minute preparation times. We entered 3 teams and were pleased that all achieved wins in their debates. Alex McCorkindale and Aaron Brighton were selected for the Canterbury Development squad which was named at the end of the competition.

The major disappointment of the year was the cancellation of the annual interschool fixture with St Kevin’s College. We were looking forward to another close contest.

We would like to express our thanks to Mrs Guerin, Mrs Gaffaney and Mrs Shields who are the teachers that run the school’s debating teams. Without your time, experience and support, the team would not be competing at the level we are today, and we are very grateful. As well as this, a special thank you to Daniel Fogarty for coming into school and donating your time and expertise to the boys. Daniel is an old boy of the college who left at the end of 2020. We are extremely grateful to have had his advice as a coach as he has taught us debaters so much that we will not forget and will use next year.

Alex McCorkindale and Tristan Reiha