TONY DAVEY: Hey, my name is Tony Davey. I am the speaking competition's assistant out of the arts unit for the New South Wales Department of Education. So I help to run stuff like this Premier's Debating Challenge and all of the public speaking and debating stuff around New South Wales. That's me.

EMILY: Hi, I'm Emily. I've been debating with the Premier's Debating Challenge since high school. And I've continued doing some debating in university and adjudicating now for the arts unit as well.

PAT: Hi, I'm Pat. I'm a national and world ranked debater and public speaker. And after Tony, I am the second most experienced debate coach and adjudicator in the state of New South Wales.

TONY DAVEY: So just a few things before we kick off, the first thing I want to do is tell you what this is going to be. We're about to watch the state final of the Premier's Debating Challenge for years five and six. So last year in 2019, there were like 920 odd teams enter the challenge. And they debated. And they debated some more.

And eventually, they debated a lot more. And they end up here with these two teams, the teams from Bowral and Hastings, who, by the way, are the reigning champions debating in this state final. So that's what we're going to watch. Obviously, they're really impressive debaters.

EMILY: So just leading on from that, obviously these debaters are all very talented and impressive. You're going to hear us give what sounds like a lot of detailed criticism today. But that's not to say that these debaters are not doing millions of things that are excellent and very good. We just felt like it was useful for everyone watching this to hear what kinds of things we thought maybe they could have done even better next time.

And we don't think that, you know, just because you're younger, you necessarily can't take things like constructive criticism. We respect your ability to be able to understand that. So we're going to try and be as helpful and useful as we can today.

PAT: The one other thing that we should point out is that you're going to hear two different kinds of feedback after each speaker today. The first is going to be feedback as an adjudicator. And the second is going to be feedback as a coach. The difference between the two is that when we're feeding back as an adjudicator, that's the thought that an adjudicator's having at that moment in the debate, thinking about what ideas are on the table at that time in the debate, and what team has explained them particularly well.

When we're talking as a coach, we're talking as if we're about to give feedback to that individual speaker. And that's kind of more about how to get them to that point, what specific things can they do in their own speech as speakers to improve how they explain those ideas, how to have more impact within the debate. We'll flag it when we're talking about one or the other. There'll often be overlap between the two.

But as best we can, we'll make sure that you know when we're speaking as if we're thinking we're about to deliver the adjudication and what ideas have won out in the debate, and also as if we're about to be a coach to that kid and what's one or two things they can do next time to improve as a speaker.

TONY DAVEY: Fantastic. All right. Keep that stuff in mind. And here we go with the first affirmative speaker.

MATILDA DODD: Welcome to the 2019 state final of the Premier's Debating Challenge for years five and six. At the start of the year, 923 primary debating teams entered this challenge. They competed in four-- in four round robin debates to determine who-- to determine who the 142 zone champions would be. And those teams competed in a series of knockout finals to decide the 10 regional champions.

With the state championships tournament abandoned due to the bushfires, those 10 champions then completed in three debates against each other across last week to determine the semifinalists. And now we-- now we have before us the only two remaining teams in the hunt for the 2019 championship. Best of luck to both teams.

[applause]

This debate is between the Bowral Bombarders and the Hastings Debatinators. The affirmative team from Bowral public school is first speaker Eden Ray, second speaker Violet Fitzsimmons, third speaker Macey Doyle, and the team advisor Lucy Rouse. The negative team from Hastings Debatinators is first speaker Caleb Morris, second speaker Zake Morris, third speaker Poppy Mc--

CREW: McIntyre

MATILDA DODD: --McIntyre and team advisor--

CREW: Sophia.

MATILDA DODD: --Sophia Mansfield. Oh sorry, the adjudicators for this debate are Joel, Simmon, Alex, Ella and [inaudible]. Each speaker may speak for four minutes. There'll be a warning bell at three minutes, with two bells at four minutes to indicate that the speaker's time has expired. A bell will be run continuously if the speaker exceeds the speaking time by more than one minute. Finally, before we begin, please ensure that all mobile phones are switched off.

The topic is that we should-- that we should require all students in years 3 to 6 to do 30 minutes of homework every weeknight. Oh, please welcome the first speaker of the affirmative team to open the debate.

[applause]

EDEN RAY: There is a big problem in society today. Students aren't regularly doing homework. They are doing inconsistent amounts of homework and not having enough education. We propose to fix this problem by making every-- making every day 30 minutes of homework. We-- this will impact students, parents, and teachers. It will be public and private in all of Australia. It will be implemented by 2020. And there will be no cost required.

And this will implement-- this will be year 3 to year 6. The rules and guidelines are 30 minutes-- 30 minutes every week night. It can be split up into sections, so they can cater to the student's needs. If they have activities, they can split it up. It is only week-- weeknights, so the weekends are time for to relax and for free time. I will be discussing it will be beneficial for the students' education. And it will teach them responsibility.

My team's second speaker will be discussing, it will teach them skills for later life. My team's first argument will show that it will be beneficial for the students' education. At the moment, students are doing inconsistent-- inconsistent loads of homework. They are waiting for-- not doing homework Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and doing all of it on Thursday. We need to learn-- we need to teach our students that that is not good. And they need to have consistent workloads. And this is not good for their education.

They need to have a good education standard. After the change, students will learn to have a consistent workload. They will always have at least 30 minutes that will increase their education. They will either be able to revise what they have done in class to really go into depth what they have learnt and to really understand the concept. Or they can do a research talk and learn something new and extend their learning in that way.

This is important because students education is really important. And we need our future generation to have a good education. And having 30 minutes of homework will dras-- every day will drastically help the kids' education, because they will be doing-- they will be doing more work and learn more general knowledge. This is 2 and 1/2 hours extra of learning every week. So this will really benefit the students in that way.

Realistically, what this looks like is kids are doing nothing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. They are doing all their work on Thursday. They rush it. They are not showing the teachers their full potential. They do not understand how crucial this is for their education. And when they get their homework on Monday, children-- the students aren't coming home and thinking, oh, I'm going to get it done straight away, because that's going to be the most beneficial. That's what I'm going to do. They're actually going to go outside, play with their video games, go to parties, do [bell ding] social activities-- social activities.

But what they actually need to be doing is doing their homework. So we need to-- if-- we need to have this rule in place to teach them that. By having this rule in place will help their learning. This way they will not have-- they will not rush their homework and will consistently have 30 minutes. So this will be spreading out their workload and make them less stressed than they already are. Instead of cramming it all into one day or specific times, they will have consistent so they're not as stressed. And we are implementing it in 3 to 6, because it will help them have skills for later life.

My team's second argument will show that it will help the student's responsibility. At the moment, kids aren't responsible. They procrastinate and rush into these-- rush their homework. They are-- they are very disorganised with all their homework loads. And this leads to-- this is leading to bad habits that they are learning that is not beneficial to them or their-- or their future life. They're staying up way too late to finish their--

[two bell dings]

--homework. It is leaving them sleep deprived and not ready for their work and homework. After change, kids will learn-- will benefit mental-- will learn beneficial, mentally efficient methods to achieve their goals. They will learn responsibility to organise their homework. And putting this rule in place will help the students give them and teach them. Because in high school, you constantly have homework. And having it in three to six will really help them teach these skills before they get dumped into the-- to high school.

This is important because we can't leave our students without responsibility. It's an important skill to learn. Our future generation needs to be responsible. And they need to know that having an inconsistent workload is teaching them bad habits and is really bad. And having consistent workloads is more beneficial, as it is spreading them out and not really making them stressed. And they can have more activities--

[bell ding]

-- that they can do.

[bell ding]

And that is why we are pour to affirm.

PAT: So guys, one piece of coaching feedback for that is that there are a lot of really good ideas there. But it was often like a vague mishmash of some really awesome content. And it's important when you've got content like that to separate it out. So early in that speech, we heard how homework is really, really important around this basic idea of consistency. There were different components to that that really needed to be fleshed out, with a point of their very own.

So there was the idea, for instance, that the consistency of homework was important in stopping people from being distracted from other things like parties or video games. There was the idea as well that consistency of homework was important in stopping people from cramming at the very last moment, meaning that the homework had like a lower quality to it and that impacted on a kid's education.

And there was also this idea that the consistency was a protection against cramming and again was a protection against stress, that staying up really late on a Thursday night to get everything done for Friday was going to stop kids from doing. Those are all really, really good individual ideas. And they really need to be made individually to have the maximum impact in a debate.

TONY DAVEY: Yeah and kind of following on from that, one of the simple things that you can tell your kids as a coach is just to come up with better, clearer labels for their arguments. So we thought that that label that goes like, my team's first argument will show that, like that's a really good start. But benefits education is actually a really broad label. When you think about it, it's everything the affirmative is going to be talking about.

So you should never have a heading that is benefits education. It should be something more like, my team's first argument will show that when you work consistently, you're far less likely to be distracted during the week and forget to work. Or my team's second argument will show that when you work consistently throughout the week, you don't end up cramming and rushing at the last minute, which leads to poor quality of homework.

So something a little bit more detailed in the heading will help you to be more focused the way that Pat was talking about.

EMILY: So despite all of that feedback on maybe how the speech could have been structured a little bit more neatly, we did think overall that from an adjudicator's perspective watching this debate, as an adjudicator you always prioritise the quality of the ideas that are being presented. And we thought this speaker did a really good job explaining not only how exactly the outcomes the team is propping will arise, but also why those outcomes are actually important and why we should care about them.

What that meant was, because those ideas were well explained, even if we have tips on how it could be arranged differently, at the end of the speech, the ideas still stood and are still given weight in this debate.

KAELEB MORRIS: The other team's idea was that this change would be beneficial for students' education. They are wrong for two clear reasons. Firstly, students will feel overworked, because they will be doing an unnecessary amount of homework. These students won't be able to concentrate at school the next day, due to the unnecessary amount of homework that they did the previous day.

The other team also claimed that kids will learn general knowledge from homework. Homework is about revising what these students did at school. If they're learning general knowledge as well as revising, we are most definitely overworking these 9 to 12-year-old primary school students. That is why the other team is clearly wrong.

The other team's idea was that this change will teach kids responsibility. They are wrong for two reasons. Firstly, you could learn responsibility in lots of different ways. Pressuring kids to finish homework every weeknight is not a very good way to teach kids responsibility. It would be much better to teach kids responsibility through owning a pet or having a bank account to save money.

Secondly, it is far more important that kids get time to do what they want, instead of just having to do what their teacher tells them. Kids should be allowed to do what they want outside of school. For example, a child who loves playing football has a training session every afternoon. But now this child can't go to their training session, because they have to do their 30 minutes of homework.

This child-- this kid will then feel sad and disappointment because they can't do what they love doing. That is why the other team is clearly wrong. We agree with the definition presented by the affirmative team. Today, I will be speaking about how kids with-- how kids need a break from school and how kids need exercise.

My second speaker will be convincing you that kids need time to do other extracurricular activities, and that teachers will be more stressed. Together, we will convince you that we shouldn't require all students in years 3 to 6 to do 30 minutes of homework every weeknight.

My team's first argument is that kids need a break. Right now, school students across Australia are getting that desperately needed break from school that day in the afternoon, to ensure that-- to ensure that they can rest their mind ready for a focused and beneficial day tomorrow. However, if this change comes in, kids will feel overworked and pressured to get their homework done, instead of getting a vital break that they deserve from all the things they would have learnt at school that day.

Kids need this break so then they don't feel overworked and can concentrate at school the next day, just as good as they would on a day when they didn't have to do homework that afternoon. The education system who behaves what, because these students should be allowed a relaxing break from brain straining work. Also these school students aged nine to 12 have lots of other things going on in their life. Adding this unnecessary half an hour of homework will just double--

[bell ding]

--double the amount of stress on these kids, which is horrible. Because kids at this age should never feel-- feel stressed like that-- like they would when this change happens. For example, Janine Allis, CEO of Boost Juice, is currently thriving, both her and her incredibly successful company. She is making massive amounts of money per day and is currently living a very happy life.

This incredibly successful woman went through the exact same education system as we all are now. We are creating successful and thriving businessmen and woman. Things must stay the same. So then we keep on making incredible human beings like Janine and many more. That is why we shouldn't require all students in years 3 to 6 to do 30 minutes of homework every single weeknight.

My team's second argument is that this change will worsen kid's physical health. Right now, kids have a jam-packed schedule, with, in most cases, some sort of activity on every single afternoon. They go straight--

[bell ding]

--from school to do an activity--

[bell ding]

--and come home late in the afternoon. Everyone knows that kids have a lot of energy. So when they get home after a long day, they just have enough time to run around outside for half an hour or so. Exercise is a vital and necessary part of a child's life. Exercise burns energy and helps to prevent deadly illnesses, such as diabetes.

So how on earth are the busy children of this generation going to fit in vital and crucial exercise, as well as half an hour of non-beneficial homework. The fact is they're not. We would be putting in unnecessary homework at the expense of children's physical health. One in four Australian children are obese. However, the current system we live in-- we're living is saying that this stuff state only improving. But after this change, it will only become worse.

It is recommended that children get one hour of physical activity at least every day.

[bell ding]

But this is obviously important, that is why we are proud to negate.

[applause]

PAT: I've got a coaching tip about the way that rebuttal worked. I thought first of all, when he did his first bit of rebuttal and said, I'm going to respond to their idea that there are benefits for education. That label was too broad when the affirmative said it. And now, it's too broad when he tries to rebut it. So he needs instead of just hearing their label to try to identify the specific idea that he wants to attack.

But where I thought he was really good was when he took on that argument about how this will teach kids responsibility. One of the things primary school kids often get wrong is they just say, look, there's another way to learn that. And he goes much further. He says, here are those other ways. Here's why they're really good ways. Here's why relying on homework is really, really bad.

So you don't ever want to just say, look, that could be done another way. You also want to rebut by saying, it could be done another way. And the way we want to do it is way better than the way they're trying to do it. So I really credited that bit of rebuttal.

EMILY: Something that we would notice as an adjudicator at this point in this debate is that after one speaker has spoken from each side, we've already got quite a different picture out from each team of what the typical students' afternoon actually looks like. One team is telling us that students have loads of free time. And they're spending it really wastefully in ways that aren't beneficial to them. So half an hour extra homework every day isn't that big of a chunk out of that day.

While another team is telling us students already have afternoons that are chock full of things like sporting commitments and extracurriculars. And taking 30 minutes out of that is going to overwork them to the point that they can't focus the next day at school.

What we really need to hear is if we believe that your side will be best for the student on your version of that students' afternoon, you need to make sure you convince the adjudicator that that is actually what a student's afternoon looks like. And that means explaining to us why you think your picture of the afternoon is actually believable, by really getting in to the student's head and explaining why the student would usually choose to spend their afternoon that way.

So that's really important, because if we do believe your picture of the afternoon, you get a lot of your benefits. But if you don't manage to convince us that that's actually what the afternoon looks like, then you're going to have a lot of trouble moving forward in the debate, even if you tell us that your outcomes, if they happened, would be really good.

TONY DAVEY: And the last thing that we just wanted to say as coaches now was just to talk about the example that the speaker used, the CEO of Boost Juice, exempt as an example of why the status quo of maybe not doing half an hour of homework a day is a great idea. On its face, it seems like a really, really cool example, right?

Like Miss Ellis, or in fact any living CEO, could be an example of a system where not having half an hour of homework a day makes you successful. But as soon as you start to think about it, you realise the example doesn't actually prove anything, right? There is nothing in there about what daily habit that CEO or any other CEO had as a result of the schooling system they were in that made them successful later on.

There's nothing in there about the theory of why having things the way they are, where kids have this time in the afternoon to run around with their friends, or play games, or destress, or be more focused at school, is more likely to make them successful later on.

So be really wary about arguing by example in the first place, or also just assuming because you know a cool fact or cool person from the world that that gives you a leg up in the debate, instead of doing that hard work of delving into what's happening now, or what the other team is proposing and talking about the logic of why that is going to make the world a better or worse place. In this case, why it's going to make students who do homework better or worse students and more or less successful in later life.

PAT: For sure. And just one really quick thing about that. Like that example, therefore, doesn't really fall into something an adjudicator would think about. We adjudicators are just going to set it aside and say, there was like 30 seconds there about Boost Juice that we're never going to think about again. You know, you don't get in trouble. It just didn't move your case forward. OK. Let's move on to the next speaker.

VIOLET FITZSIMONS: So the opposition stated that 30 minutes was a colossal amount of time to be wasting student's time by this. And they wouldn't be able to attend soccer practise. Well firstly, my first speaker clearly stated they could break up this time in however way it suited them. It could be 5 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the afternoon. And there's plenty of the time in the day to do this.

They also stated that after children came home from after school activities, such as sport, they could have a half hour run around the yard. And that is enough time for them-- enough time and they could go to bed then. We suggest we take away this half hour run around the yard and use it to do homework, as we clearly suggested. We don't see how they need to do sport and after school activities and then do it around the yard. This seemed rather random.

They also stated that because it's 30 minutes, they take away completely from like their social life and sporting. What we didn't-- we haven't made them do this on the weekends. They have two days of time to get all this caught up, to be athletic, to get the obesity rates down. So it's not as if we're ruining anything here. They said-- they also said that the kids wouldn't be able to do soccer and things and after school activities because of the 30 minutes. Well they clearly ignored our definition once again.

We also didn't see what the Boost Juice CEO has anything to do with this debate. One person on the education system, there's 24 million people in Australia. It's not as if this one person reflects with every other person's behaviours and education. We also don't know how this Boost Juice CEO is in any way related to the topic. They also said that kids need-- kids this age have no need to feel stress. Well we believe that some amount of stress is vital for later life. They can't just be like ignorant to the fact that stress is a fact of later life. And 30 minutes is not that a large amount of stress. We see no issue with this.

They're also acting as if we are bringing homework in now and that homework has never been a thing. They are already doing homework, if not already doing half an hour or more than that under the status quo. So we see no problem with bringing it in as mandatory. We're not bringing in homework. We're not bringing in the bad effects of this. We're just making it mandatory that they do 30 minutes of this-- 30 minutes of this. They also said, kids are getting a break from homework either-- either they will not bring in homework.

They also said that kids could do what they want outside of school, and they shouldn't be controlled by the teachers. Well, kids do pretty idiotic things sometimes. They go to spend their time on X-box and talking to their friends and watching YouTube. It's not going to be educational. We are also talking about year 3s in this model. They're not going to be forward thinkers. They're not going to think, oh wait, I'll do my homework, because that's good for later life. They're going to think, oh wait, I got a new toy. I'm going to play with that. You know, it's not like they're thinking practically here.

They also said that the kids can learn responsibility from tests-- from pets, sorry, and not from homework. But we think that kids are actually pretty irresponsible with pets. And we could elaborate on this. But we think it's pretty much a side track from the other team. But like kids aren't going to treat pets well, and that's just cruel to the pets, firstly. They also stated that 30 minutes is overworking the kids-- overworking kids, which it isn't. 30 minutes is a very, very small amount of time. And it's not going to take up much of that kid's day.

And they also stated that we're teaching kids new things within homework. Well just so we're clear here, it's revision. That's what homework is and not bringing in anything new. They also said that kids will be less obese under their model. We don't see how this is working. They're sticking with the status quo here. And if one thought the kids were obese, then that's still going to be the same.

Anyway, but leading into my first argument, my team's my final argument will show that our model will prepare kids for later life. So right now kids are easily getting away with not doing any homework. The teacher is setting kids' homework to mark and that's 4 pages. That's going to add up to a lot of things to mark.

[bell ding]

They're presented with no concept of working hard in their own time to achieve their goals. In reality, they will have to work overtime. And so say this child becomes a lawyer. They'll need to review their case and work hard at home and research things and to make sure they've got their case straight, so they can make it-- do a good job at work. However, under the status quo, they're not being told they should work hard and spend their own time [inaudible] or spend this time practically in breaking up into bits of half hour and giving them a stable workload.

Kids need to understand that homework is more important than playing the X-box. And they should do this continuously. And they will understand this after the government emphasise-- emphasises the importance of homework via moderating 30 minutes of work. After the change, they will also learn the skill of slowly chipping away at something to achieve a goal. So an example of this is the year 6 crams for the math test for three hours the day before. So because of this, they're going to be sleep-deprived. They're staying up late. They're misusing their time. They're bombarding themselves with information that they clearly can't understand in such a short period of time.

And when the test comes, they're completely flustered with the information. They're not focusing on the answer there. They're focusing on all the things they jammed into their head the night before and their lack of sleep they actually got. Realistically, they'll be sleep-deprived for staying up cramming--

[bell ding]

-- and they won't be able to focus on the test.

[bell ding]

But now with 30 minutes per day, they'll be given the time to comprehend and review the information without bombarding themselves with information they don't need. Now they won't be leaping into-- leaping into cramming as the only solution to learning things at school. And they'll be spending their time wisely, spending 30 minutes at every single day, and spending this wisely, and spending it an equal amount of time on every day. And this-- we need to teach them this now when the stakes aren't too high.

What about in high school? What is the risk in later life? The [inaudible] a work interview, we need to teach them how to handle the time fairly and to make sure they have a consistent work. Otherwise, things will just grow to despair. And we can not leave them cramming or being sleep deprived. And they need to build this routine, so they can bring this into later life and build a [inaudible] when they go to university or into later life. So they can handle real life situations, which is vital in real stressful situations when the stakes are high.

So for example, the kids learn-- kid learns his homework routine. They carry this method into high school and calmly tackle challenges, because they know how to do it from primary school. They don't depend on last minute cramming, because the average high school kid is going to focus on parties and playing video games [inaudible] and is not going to study all week long.

[bell ding]

And that is why we are proud to affirm.

[applause]

PAT: OK. Let's take a breath and talk about that speech. So I'm going to talk just very quickly about the rate at which she presented all of those ideas. It does look a little bit debataly so we don't want anyone-- and obviously, it's a state final. So we don't want there to be any confusion about whether that works or not. That does not work. That girl needs to slow down a good amount. And she's been given that tip quite a few times as well. So I think she is trying.

We get that she has a lot to say, but if you're wondering like, are we blown away and impressed by how quickly she gets through those ideas? Or are we probably like you sitting here saying, you should slow down, because we're missing a lot of what you say? She should definitely slow down. She is brushing over so, so many good ideas there. And as a coach, we would just keep giving her that tip. She needs to slow down, and slow down, and slow down some more. That is not what your adjudicator is hoping to hear. OK.

EMILY: A bit of a coaching tip that might actually help her to slow down is to try and consolidate the material that she is giving. So obviously there's, as we said, a lot of really good material here. But some of it actually was repeated a few times and probably didn't necessarily need to be.

So I think what speakers need to remember is in the heat of a debate, when you've got three other excellent debaters on the team with you, and they're all flinging palm cards at you, and you want to say everything that they've given you, it's really easy to give in to the temptation of just reading as quickly as possible everything that you have in your hands. And that's a totally understandable habit for debaters to have, especially early on when you really want to be able to depend on your team for things like ideas that they may have.

However, a good thing to remember is that at the end of the day, it's still your speech. It's your choice whether or not you choose to read everything out. No one on your team is going to be heartbroken if you didn't mention one small piece of rebuttal. And keep in mind that if you get to another palm card that say your second speaker or third speaker has passed you, and you realise that you've already read out a palm card with a really similar rebuttal, you don't have to read out that other palm card. You can just flip it over and move on to the next one.

And that will probably help you to slow down, if you're struggling with that, while still not losing out all of the really good material that needs to come out later in your speech as well.

TONY DAVEY: So as an adjudicator looking at that speech, it's really important to go back to this idea of what an afternoon looks like for any kid at primary school, and whether or not we should be burdening them with more homework. There are kind of two approaches that speakers normally take when they're talking about this kind of thing. The first is they just say an afternoon looks a certain way. Kids are either overtaxed, or kids are really, really lazy doing nothing. And that's not great.

The better way is when a speaker says, well here is a believable version of events. And let me tell you exactly why that's the case. And that's exactly what the speaker did here. So we thought it was really impressive when she was talking about how year 3 kids are not forward planners. And when put to a choice between doing homework they think is boring and playing with a toy that they really like, they are going to pick the toy every time. It's moments like that that help paint a picture that's helpful to her team's case about what those afternoons look like, and why they're more likely to be right about whether or not we should force kids to do half an hour of homework.

ZAKE MORRIS: The other team's idea was that this change will teach kids skills for later in life. They're wrong for two reasons. Firstly, later in life extra work is voluntary-- is voluntary. So forcing kids to do half an hour of homework every day, this will create a mindset that they won't need to be mature enough to choose-- to choose to do homework. This will not benefit their future in any way. Secondly, years-- years 3 and 6 is not about preparing for later life. It is about learning.

And although you may think doing extra homework improves this, it is actually just making kids overworked, therefore tired the next day. This will ruin the next day-- this will ruin their next days in school. That is why the other team is wrong. Our team's third argument is that kids need to do other extracurricular activities. Right now, when kids are able to attend their extracurricular activities, they are not feeling stressed or worried about the 30 minutes of homework they must do after their desired activity.

It is a fact that extracurricular activities are vital to a child. During this crucial time, kids are able to express and practise their talents, whether it be sport, music, or another activity that a child loves. When they are in their happy environment, they can make new friends, keep fit and healthy, and overall just enjoy life, which we all know is extremely important. Kids are able to have fun, which they may not be getting in a classroom or on the playground.

These extracurricular activities can also provide a career for children who do not-- who did not find a university degree appealing. A kid who does not enjoy day-to-day work at school has extracurricular activities to turn to. This makes them feel less stressed about their future and extremely happy, because they are doing something they love. And they pour their heart and soul into it without any worry of, say, 30 minutes of homework that they don't have time to do or do not understand the topic.

However, after the change, kids across Australia will have to either give up or not enjoy their activities outside of school. A kid who once enjoys-- enjoyed, lived and breathed, say, basketball now feels worried and stressed whenever playing basketball that they need to do this homework. This change will be literally ruining kids necessary hours outside of school, because they will be too stressed by either not understanding the homework assigned to them-- assigned to them or are worried they won't be able to get it done in time to be getting enough sleep.

For example, a kid loves playing the trumpet immensely and even thinks that playing the trumpet might be a professional career for them, because a job in an office does not appeal to them. Then the change is brought in. This child is worried and scared that their dream of playing the trumpet--

[bell ding]

-- will be unachievable, because they don't-- because they don't have the physical time or strength to do it. And whenever they play the instrument, they just worry about the 30 minutes of homework after. Their so-- they are constantly nervous and worried, which is not what we want. We don't want kids left confused because they don't know what to do when they are older. This is what the affirmative team are proposing. That is why we should not give students 30 minutes of homework every day, every weeknight.

My team's fourth argument is that teachers will get super stressed. Right now, teachers across Australia already have lots of work they have to do, but not enough for them to get stressed and worried about it. They are planning good quality lessons for their students. And they feel like they are doing a good job. However, after the change, teachers will be completely overworked and stressed. Because on top of all the other work they have, such as marking and planning lessons, they have to plan--

[bell dings]

-- half an hour of homework for their students. Teachers have approximately 30 kids in one class. 30 minutes of homework would include approximately 30 double-sided sheets of homework, which is overall 6 sheets. 30 times 6 is 180. This means that teachers now have to plan 180 individual sheets of homework on top of all the other things I listed before. Teachers will become overworked and tired, because they have to plan all of that homework in the afternoon.

When teachers are tired, they can't plan good quality lessons for their students. So this change will also affect the teachers students. So it is obvious that what the affirmative team is proposing is completely ridiculous. For example, a teacher who has 30 students in their class is always stressed, tired, and worried-- tired and worried about going home after school. Because they know that they have to plan work-- plan work, mark work, and plan more homework for their students because of this change. They then feel pressured and stressed--

[bell ding]

Be--

[bell ding]

Because-- that is why I'm proud to negate.

[bell ding]

[applause]

EMILY: As an adjudicator, one of the first things we notice at the beginning of this speech is that we don't hear a great deal of rebuttal. And there definitely is some at the beginning of that speech. But we thought that given the weight of material and just sheer quantity of material that we've heard from the other team at this point in the debate, it's really important that this speaker tries to do a little bit more rebuttal if they can.

Especially not just in terms of actual substantive points that the affirmative team has said, but if the other team has rebutted your points, this is a really good chance to respond to those rebuttals and say, actually, here's why those points we said earlier are actually still right at this point in the debate. So make sure that you try to cover a little bit more ground, even if you're not 100% sure if your rebuttal is going to knock it out of the park. It's still a good point of practise to just try and respond to as much of their material as possible.

PAT: As a coach, one thing that I'm really looking to reinforce for this speaker is his really, really good habit of doing a bit of maths for the audience to maximise the impact to the point that he's making. In his speech, he was making an argument about kind of the workload for a teacher in marking the number of pieces of homework that came their way. And so he talked about 6 sheets per student, 30 students in a class, 180 total pieces of paper. I think he meant to say mark but instead said set, not really important at this point.

That's a really great habit to get into as a speaker. When you can talk with some authority about how individual efforts pile up to make something more important, whether that's half an hour of homework a day, adding up to 2 and 1/2 extra hours a week, whether it's the marking workload for a teacher, whether in a different debate, it's about, for instance, the cost of school uniforms and breaking it down to $25 for this and $20 for that and adding that up to a $300 a year burden.

So that the audience really has a sense of what the overall impact of whatever you're arguing about is, don't be afraid to do some maths right there in front of the audience and give them the sum total of everything that you're talking about.

TONY DAVEY: Cool. And just lastly, I want to talk about that last argument that he presented about the stress on teachers. I think as adjudicators we probably know that that's not going to win this debate. I think, you know, the audience, you're probably thinking this too. If this homework plan proves to be good for kids, we'll probably just force teachers to do it without worrying too much about the impact on them. If it's bad for kids, it'd be dumb to make teachers do it. So it's not going to change our decision probably.

But, look, as a coach, it really is a good argument to be trying at that moment. So what we'd encourage you to do is to like have all of your most important arguments about the biggest group of people in the debate, the students, really early. And then if you've got a little bit of time towards the end of your case, try on an argument about a different stakeholder group, like teachers. It might be really, really helpful. And we think he does it really, really successfully here.

So having that lost argument at second speaker be a slightly less important one about maybe a different group of stakeholders is actually really, really good. And that's really good coaching. Although in this particular instance, it's probably not true that we're going to decide this debate based on the impact on teachers. OK, time for the third speakers.

MACEY DOYLE: Our team has found three main issues within this debate. The first one is whether homework is actually beneficial to students and teachers. The second one is whether this would stop kids from doing extra activities. And the third one whether this would help kids in later life or not. The first one is whether homework is beneficial. The other team stated that homework is unnecessary. But homework is really necessary, because you can learn more skills. You can understand things that you didn't quite get before better. You can do research projects about things that you don't have time to do at school, use materials that you don't have at school, that you can use at home.

The other team stated that homework is just revising. However, homework can be different in its own beneficial way. And it is not just necessarily revising as students can be doing research projects as well. The other team is acting like homework is non-existent at the moment. However, going with the status quo, homework is there. And teachers are still going to have to mark student's homework. All we're changing is that students are doing it more consistently and creating good habits.

The other team stated that kids don't understand homework. However, they can ask their parents, older siblings, teachers, the internet for help if they don't understand. And there are many ways that they can understand. The other team stated that-- said that teachers would be stressed because they'll be marking pages and pages of homework. However, teachers are already doing this at the moment. And all we're doing is making student's workload more consistent and more efficient.

The second point issue in this debate was whether students would still have time to do extra-- extracurricular activities. So there are 24 hours in a day, 10 hours for sleep, 6 hours a day at school that students are spending, maybe two hours of extracurricular activities, possibly one hour of travel to and from school and to extra activities. That still leaves 4 and 1/2 hours, 4-- 5 hours unused. When they're doing their homework, they have 4 and 1/2 hours still left to destress, do those things that students want to do.

And maybe that guy could practise his trumpet and still become and follow his professional dream of being a trumpet player. The other team-- and they also still have the weekend. And what we're doing is just making them use their time more efficiently. So they're not cramming on that night before that test, and staying up late, and losing sleep, and stressing over it. And they're doing it properly and more efficiently than they would be with the current model.

And kids can still have fun that they want to do. And they can destress. And they can spend their time on other things, because they still have that extra time. It's only 30 minutes each night. And as we said before, these 30 minutes can be separated. So they might do--

[bell ding]

--15 minutes before they go and do their extracurricular activities and 15 minutes after. It doesn't have to be all in one workload. And it is as long as they do 30 minutes each night, it doesn't matter when they do those 30 minutes. The other team stated that students would be stressed when they're playing basketball and doing their extracurricular activities.

However, it's only half an hour. And maybe they've already done 15 minutes beforehand. And so students won't be stressed. However, they will be stressed if it's that day before the test and straight after basketball, they've got to go home and study for three hours, which leads them to be stressed and gives them inconsistent study time.

The last issue in this debate is whether doing this would be beneficial to later life. The other team stated that in jobs extra work is voluntary. However, in later life, you do still have to work overtime and not at the office and work from home.

[bell ding]

For example--

[bell ding]

--teachers, they're doing their work at school teaching their students. But when they go home, they still have to organise lessons, plan lessons, mark homework. And having this model would get students into good habits. So that when they're older and they are in the work industry or in high school, they can do this consistently and well, instead of rushing and doing it badly.

The other team stated that even if that's true, 3 to 6 is not useful to later life. However, what we're doing-- not-- it's too early to start practicing these good habits. However, what we're stating is that these children can learn these good habits, so that they don't have to learn them when-- later when it's harder to learn them. And what we're doing is putting this in early so that students know how to do it and for high school, as well as in the work industry.

So all our model is changing--

[bell ding]

-- is that students are doing their work more consistently.

[bell dings]

And that is why we are proud to affirm.

[applause]

EMILY: A bit of coaching feedback on this speech would be that the speaker does a really good job splitting up the material that's come out so far into three different questions, that she then goes through very methodically. The reason why we really like this is obviously there's been a lot said in this debate. And it just helps her to avoid having to rebut things in ways that might seem messy or confusing or having to repeat herself. Because if she groups them, she can just respond to them all at once and then kind of move on to the next piece of, you know, big idea or whatever she needs to do.

Something that might be helpful to keep in mind within each of those questions though is just a rehash of what we mentioned earlier about making sure that you're really clear what actual argument or explanation of the other team you're rebutting. So rather than just saying something for instance like, the other team said that homework is not necessary. And then just explaining why homework is broadly good.

Make sure you really knuckle down with the details of why they claimed that homework is not necessary or harmful, and then respond to those things specifically, which will not only help to improve your own rebuttal but will also mean that you leave less of the other team's case standing, than if you just respond to the broader ideas behind what they were saying and actually look at the specifics of what each of the speakers said about that idea.

PAT: As adjudicators, we thought the speaker's content on why doing an extra half hour of homework a day wouldn't come at the costs of other activities was particularly powerful. And the reason we thought that material was particularly powerful is because this speaker actually broke down the 24 hours of a day into different chunks, talking about 10 hours for sleep, 6 hours for school, an hour to get to school and back, two hours for the kind of the essential activities, leaving over 5 hours that kids could do with as they want. Taking away that half hour for homework left kids, she said, with 4 and 1/2 hours to, if they wanted, play the trumpet.

So all the kind of things that the negatives been talking about being really important to kids and their future lives in this debate, this speaker was able to quantify and then point to a moment in the day when those kids could do those activities. Doing that kind of maths and that breakdown as to why we should believe the day in the life of kids looks the way it does was really impactful to the case of the affirmative in this debate.

OK. So one last thing about what the adjudicators are thinking. And it's about the end of her speech. You're probably aware that third speakers are supposed to do a quick summary towards the end of their speech. And you'll notice she didn't get time to do that. As adjudicators, we don't care at all. We thought her rebuttal was excellent. We're not interested in whether or not she gets to that summary. That's if you have time.

And you'll notice as well that throughout her case, she's-- or her rebuttal, she's bringing back things that her team has said that are useful to think about anyway. So she does bring back the different things that her speakers have talked about, while she's rebutting the other team. And that's a perfectly good way to make sure that you've done everything you need to do.

We're not sitting here as adjudicators going like, ooh, there's a step that you're supposed to have done. You didn't do that step. You've been marked down somehow. We think it was a great speech with really good rebuttal. And that's all we're thinking as adjudicators. OK. Time for the last speaker.

POPPY MCINTYRE: We, the negative time, saw this debate come down to two main issues. Firstly, will this benefit kids' education? And secondly, will this benefit other aspects of kids life, such as responsibility? So on the first issue of, will this change benefit kids' education? The other team's idea was that kids will get-- will get a better education and become smarter because of this change. They are wrong for three reasons.

Firstly, kids are not going to get a better education if they are getting-- because they're doing 30 minutes of homework every night. Because 30 minutes of extra homework will actually just tyre the kids. They will be too tired to do the-- they'll be too tired the next day to do the proper curriculum work at school the next day. Because when kids have a lot of things going on in their life, and they're already tired in the current situation that we live in, plus 30 minutes of unnecessary non-beneficial homework, then they're just going to be tremendously tired and way too tired to learn well the next day.

Secondly, homework is unnecessary. It is not part of the curriculum in primary school, maybe in high school but not in primary school. Homework is revising the same topics that they have learned that day. And in primary school, this is not very important. The stuff they have learnt is still fresh in their mind. They do not need another couple of sheets of the same stuff they have previously learned. Homework is a complete waste of time in primary school that kids could be spending at their extracurriculum time or getting-- or getting exercise outside in the playground.

Thirdly, this change will-- won't create more marking for teachers. They claim that homework is just revising but-- the same things you have learned at school. And in years 3 to 6, you don't have enough things to revise on-- enough things in a school day to take half an hour to revise on them in the afternoon. So teachers will have to set more work, which means more marking, which means not enough time to plan quality lessons for the next day.

That is why the other team is wrong. The other team stated that they can break up the homework. However, this removes any educational benefit, as if you're doing six 5-minutes sessions a day, you won't actually be learning. Because you'll end up-- because you'll do one minute-- you'll do five minutes of something. And then you'll have forgotten it, because you only spent five minutes on it, so you have to do another five minutes on it. But then you won't know what you've done. And It will just become confusing because you're splitting it up. And you have no idea what you've done, removing any educational benefits.

The other team said that in their rebuttal that year 3 kids aren't going to think to themselves, oh, I'm going to do my homework. Well it isn't like parents are just going to let kids sit around not doing their homework, if homework is what they need to do. Parents will make sure that they do what is necessary for their kids-- for the kids' education. And we don't need the government to enforce this change, that actually won't be beneficial to some-- and most kids. So at the end of this issue of will this benefit kids' education, it is clear that it will only make kids more tired, therefore making their education worse.

So on the second issue of, will this change benefit--

[bell ding]

--kids in other aspects of life. The other team's idea was that this change will teach kids responsibility. They are wrong for two reasons. Firstly, responsibility is making your own choice to make the right-- is making your own choice to make the right choice. But the affirmative are proposing that we force kids to do homework, which is not making a choice, removing any element of choice. Kids aren't going to learn responsibility from being forced to do something, because that is the opposite of-- of what responsibility is.

Secondly, responsibility does not even compare in importance to kids' health and fitness, which the opposing teams model is going to make worse. Because kids won't have enough time to run around and do sporting things to improve their health. That is why the other team is wrong. The other team's idea was that this change will help kids with later life. They are wrong for two reasons.

Firstly, this change will not help, if anything it will make it worse. Because kids have lots of things to do in the afternoon. And for example, they won't be able to socialise with their friends.

[bell dings]

And these are important life skills for the future. They won't be able to have time-- they won't be able to have time to help out around the house, which is definitely a life skill. They won't have enough time to go to extracurricular activities, which is definitely an important life skill. Secondly, this doesn't have anything to do with the topic. Doing homework won't benefit a child's later life. It's doing homework. It's revising about something that they learned in the past. How is that going to help you in the future? That is why the other team is wrong.

The other team also stated that mathematically kids currently have 5 hours left, but who's ever found themselves with 5 hours left in the day. They didn't mention anything about meals and travel does not-- it takes more than one hour in a day. Who's ever found themself with five spare hours? That is absolutely ridiculous. And like 4 and 1/2 hours after the change is also not going to be true, because who's ever found--

[bell dinging]

--because no one has five extra hours. That is why the other team is wrong.

[applause]

PAT: OK. Just as a coaching tip to that speaker, it's really important when you're responding to material, especially when it's just come out in this speech before yours, to frame some of your points with a really important context. Let's be specific about what we mean here. When that speaker responded really late in her speech to the breakdown that third affirmative had given around what 24 hours looks like and why kids would have 5 hours minus 1/2 an hour homework to play with that 4 and 1/2 hours figure, that was good rebuttal.

That really needed to happen earlier in her speech. Because without that, her responses around how kids wouldn't have time to socialise, and that was going to be a problem for those kids now and in later life, really didn't have an important context, which was that kids had a finite amount of time. And we needed to make sure they had an appropriate amount of time in which to socialise with other kids. So just be conscious that when you've got rebuttal, or your own substantive material that gives context to material that comes later, that it gets prioritised and comes first out of your mouth within your speech.

EMILY: As an adjudicator, I was really happy to hear from this speaker's speech some responses to arguments that hadn't yet been responded to by this negative team. So firstly on this idea that the affirmative team repeats about how you can split up the 30 minutes homework time however you like and that means you'll be able to be flexible with it, and also the idea that children are too irresponsible to choose when to do homework themselves, this third negative speaker finally gives us kind of our first proper thorough response to those points.

Although it's a little unfortunate that it comes this late in the debate, it was still good that it did come out at some point and that was that response obviously did hold some weight and was rewarded in this debate. So make sure that you are covering everything that's been said in the debate. To that point, even if you're late in the debate, it's totally fine and good to respond to things earlier on that still haven't been touched on by your team.

TONY DAVEY: Yeah. Especially if it's important material. I think as an adjudicator, we're thinking to ourselves, it's good that that came out now. And I give it some weight. But even as you hear it, you're saying to yourself, ooh, it's probably something I should have heard earlier as well. And that kind of leads into what I'm thinking of as an adjudicator, which is where at the very end of the debate, and it's a debate that started with the affirmative basically finding lots of ways to say, working consistently is much better than putting stuff off and then cramming.

And we heard that lots and lots of different ways across all of the affirmative speeches. And at the end of the debate, I can't remember the negative coming back and talking about things like cramming, about the habits kids build when they do homework. They've almost exclusively just said, look, homework is bad. It gets in the way of your life. So it's really important that the negative respond to that here, I think. And then respond to that most basic idea the affirmative gave us.

And as an adjudicator, I'm really worried that the negative haven't come back to that idea that kids are instead of working consistently, postponing and procrastinating, and then cramming everything in in a bad way that makes their education and their kind of stress levels more unhealthy. So not having heard a response to that question, that's a really big problem for me as an adjudicator. It feels like one of the big things in the debate. Let's see if the adjudicators felt the same way. Thanks for listening.

ALEX DE ARAUJO: Awesome. So firstly, obviously a huge, huge, huge congratulations to both teams. All five of us on the panel thought that they did both an incredible job from both teams, just in the quality of arguments and rebuttal that they brought up across all six speakers and all eight members of the team. And even if they didn't put on a fantastic performance day, which they all did, just getting here in the first place is such an amazing achievement. So both teams, I think deserve a second round of applause.

[applause]

And while we thought this was an incredible debate, we thought there are two general pieces of feedback for both teams in particular which really stood out to all of us. The first was just clarity. So there were times in this debate where it wasn't really clear the exact world that either team was standing for. So we needed a crystal clear picture of exactly what children on your side were actually doing. So on the affirmative, it's something like a brutal 30 minutes a night, maybe an hour more in some cases. That's pretty much what they have to stand to and paint a picture of.

On the negative, it's parents enforcing homework as necessary but also prioritising children's exercise and extracurriculars throughout the week, and look-- talking about the balance that they actually have, and how much time kids are spending on homework in their ideal world. So a little bit of clarity from both teams about specifically how much time kids are spending on relative things under both sides, and using those differences, pointing out why their side is ahead.

Secondly, we thought responsiveness needed a bit of work. So we thought all six speakers were really great at responding to arguments and rebutting. But sometimes the specific rebuttal left a little bit to be desired. So sometimes it would not change throughout the debate from the rebuttal that we heard at first speaker to the rebuttal we heard at third speaker, even though the argument and counter rebuttal had changed a little bit from the other team, which meant that they couldn't really adapt to the arguments at third speak as opposed to the arguments at first speaker, if that makes sense to both teams.

But secondly, they would often try and rebut small strands of the argument, as opposed to the gist and the meat of the argument itself, often choosing to rebut examples and smaller different versions of the argument as opposed to what the argument actually looks like. So given that, in terms of issues in the debate, the panel were unanimous in terms of verdict. And we all saw it as being broadly coming into two categories.

Firstly, how would this consistent homework affect children's education? And then secondly, how would consistent homework affect children's well-being? On education, affirmative tells that children are currently performing their homework inconsistently, that they're procrastinating and staying up late and that enforcing a consistent homework workload will reduce stress, eliminate their rushing at the end to complete it, and teach important skills like responsibility.

Negative in response tell us that homework, firstly, is not particularly important because it's just revising. But we thought, firstly, they could have done a little bit more of this to tell us exactly why it's not revising. But secondly, that affirmative did give a nice set of examples, like research projects and catching up on stuff that you'd missed, which tended to rise above that initial rebuttal from the negative.

The second thing that negative tell us is that life skills like extra work is sometimes optional in later life. And it doesn't need to be taught in schools, it can be taught later. To which affirmative say that it is often necessary. And they do use the example of teaching, which we thought was quite clever. And that teaching children life skills when they can easily pick up habits as young kids, as opposed to waiting until it's too late, was quite helpful. So we thought that this old argument ultimately stood from affirmative.

In response though, negative tell us that teachers now will have to plan much more homework during the week, making hard their lesson plans and their mental health levels. We thought firstly that this was quite a narrow part of the debate. But secondly that affirmative did outline throughout their case that it probably was the same amount of work for teachers or at least very, very similar, just spread out throughout the week. And so we didn't see too much of an additional harm to spreading out the workload throughout the week, if they would have had to do it anyway.

So ultimately here, we thought there was some considerable benefit to be had for children's education. On well-being, and this is where the bulk of team negative substantive really came out, because they told us that school students across Australia are getting a desperately needed break from school right now. And that taking it away would make them feel pressured and overworked. And we thought they did a really good job of expanding this to exercise and important extracurricular activities throughout their case, which children might lose out on. And they did an excellent job of proving that those things were important.

However, affirmative we thought had a suite of equally really impressive responses to that. Firstly, they said that there is enough time during the day to add in additional, if necessary, 30 minutes of homework. Secondly, that children can break up the 30 minutes to what is necessary. Thirdly, they do have the weekends. Fourthly, they tell us that some stress is helpful. And finally, most importantly, they tell us that children aren't doing any more homework than they originally were. They're just doing it at different time.

So even though we thought third negative gave some clever responses to some of these, we thought this was a little bit late in the debate. And on the whole, we thought that the range of responses from the affirmative was enough to prove there wouldn't be that much of a harm in adding an extra 30 minutes or shifting the homework to 30 minutes per night.

So ultimately here, we thought there was enough time for the boy on the basketball court, which team negative brought out, to destress without having to lose out on anything in particular. And that this consistent homework wouldn't come at too much of a cost to other things. And ultimately, that meant that its educational benefits outweighed the other considerations that we thought about. And because of this, we have very narrowly given this debate to the affirmative team.

[applause]

MATILDA DODD: A speaker will now congratulate the winning team.

SOPHIA MANSFIELD: Good job you guys. Like state winners, that's so good. You should be so proud. And you're very scary as well.

[laughter]

[applause]

[interposing voices]

SUBJECT 1: Best first speaker. You were so good.

CREW: Back in that direction.

MATILDA DODD: A speaker from the winning team will now respond.

LUCY ROUSE: Well done you guys. You should be so proud of yourselves for coming second, that is so much out of the whole state. And you did a really good job. And this is such a close debate, so well done.

VIOLET FITZSIMMONS: Can I just say something? You beat us before anyway.

[interposing voices]