At the moment of writing this, the History debating season is still not yet complete. After last year’s success in the Year 10 competition, Newington entered two teams this year, one in Year 10 and one in Year 11. Both teams made the semi-finals and our Year 11 team debate on Thursday 28 November against Tara. This is a wonderful achievement by our boys to make the last four teams in each pool.

What was interesting to note was that by the quarter final stage (16 teams all up), Newington was the only boys’ school left in both the Year 10 and Year 11 competitions! Our Year 10 team travelled to Roseville College last week for their semi-final and were narrowly defeated, having to argue the seemingly impossible line that the Gallipoli Legend does not distort the truth about Australia’s history. The team of Alexander Iannuzzi (10/MO), Jean-Luc Gallo (10/MO), Justin Ting (10/JN) and Callum Strachan (10/JN) was undefeated to that point. They were coached excellently by Old Boy, Hugh Piper (ON 2011).

Our Year 11 team take on Tara on Thursday and will argue the case that WWI Generals were not to blame for high casualty rates in WWI, again, a very challenging side of the debate to be on. Our Year 11 team are defending champions in the competition and have not lost a debate since the start of last year. We wish the team of Sebastian Rees (11/PR), Samuel Wallace (11/MO), Ben Adams (11/FL) and Sean Hatten (11/ME) the very best of luck.

All these boys should be congratulated on their excellent efforts this year in this very challenging debating competition. They have represented the school with distinction and have consistently exhibited the quality of thinking and work ethic we expect of all our historians here at Newington.

Mr Marco Scali
History Teacher