Video transcript
NSW Premier's Debating Challenge 2022 - Years 5 and 6 State Final

[intro music]

FINN THIRKELL: Welcome to the state final of the Premier's Debating Challenge for Year 5 and 6. This debate is between Alstonville Cool Blue and Randwick Endeavour. The affirmative team from Alstonville Cool Blue is first speaker Hannah, second speaker Liberty, third speaker Frankie, and fourth speaker Ruby.

The negative team from Randwick Endeavour is first speaker Kate, second speaker Eili, third speaker Hartley, and fourth speaker Tiffany. The adjudicators for this debate are Tony, Ellie, and Gemma. The speaking time for this debate is 4 minutes. There will be a warning bell at 3 minutes--

[ding]

--2 bells at 4 minutes--

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--and a continuous bell at 5 minutes.

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The topic for this debate is 'That kids should be given a second chance to complete their assignments if they get a bad mark'. Finally, please take a moment to make sure all mobile phones are switched off. Now please welcome the first affirmative speaker to open the door.

[applause]

HANNAH CLARK: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a massive problem that needs to be addressed. Children right now are sometimes slacking off in class and are not getting the best marks. But this isn't always their fault. Students sometimes have bad days or bad weeks. They might be experiencing grief, or maybe they're just not feeling the best. Either way, our team believes they deserve a second chance.

We scope this change to students in Year 5 to 12 attending in NSW Department of Education-run school. Teachers will only get to tell the students the marks, and they won't be able to tell them the questions they got wrong if their students take the second chance so that they can't really cheat and just get the same answers right. They have to work them out again.

We define the topic as students, if they get a mark below 59%, they can have one second chance to redo this if they want. We define assignments as projects, exams and anything that gets a mark. The steps we will take to put this plan into place are alerting the schools that this plan will be in place by 2023, and that's basically it. It's really low-effort, and we will now tell you why it has a massive impact.

As first speaker, I will kick off my case by saying how it improves students marks, then how it improves their mental health, and finally, how it allows them to learn from their mistakes. My second speaker will talk about how it improves their confidence then add on about my argument about second chance, and finally, add on to my argument about mental health.

Everyone should be given a second chance. My team's first argument will show that this change will greatly improve students' marks. Right now, students are just getting off with the minimum as they don't think they can do any better. They don't believe in themselves, and they don't push themselves. After the change, students will be able to explore their full potential because they know that even if they fail something trying to do that, they could still have a second chance.

This is impo-- this is because children are given the opportunity to become better if this change comes into place. Think of it like a sunflower. First, when the seed is planted, children find out that this magnificent opportunity has come into place. Then when the first few leaves sprout, they take control of these opportunities. They use it to improve themselves. The water and soil that help them grow are the mistakes and challenges that they use to improve themselves.

And then when the sunflower is fully grown, they have ACE test, and then the cycle starts again. That's important because kids need this opportunity to improve. They need this because mental health is not getting very good, and students can't concentrate.

Picture this. There's a student in Year 6 who wants to go to a private high school, but they can't get in because they know that their tests and results aren't good enough and that they just won't accept it. But after this change comes in, they will realise that if they push themselves, they can do even better because they know they can have a second chance in case they make lots of mistakes. Then they finally get into the high schools and realise that it's the best thing. And now they know that they don't have to suffer in silence, not knowing, just trying to do what they can without making mistakes and just doing the bare minimum.

And that's why we should bring this awesome change into place. Everyone deserves a second chance. My team's second argument will show that implementing this change will improve kids' mental health. Right now, kids are stressed. They aren't proud of the work they do because they know it's not their best work.

But if they make a mistake, they can't try again. They'll lose their marks constantly, and they will be thinking about what they did wrong and how they can't fix it. And it will eat them alive. They'll feel useless, like they're not enough. But what if we could fix this?

Well, we can. After this change comes in, kids will be happier and go into projects with a better mindset because they know that this won't only improve their learning, but they will think better about themselves and know that if it's not their best, they can do better. This is because kids will be proud and happy. Feeling like you've accomplished something is a powerful feeling, and I'm sure you all know that. It makes you feel like you're worth something.

Mistakes are important, but if you only make mistakes, it will make you feel like you're a mistake. So you need the time to improve. If kids have a second chance, it will give them the motivation to learn and try again. It will let them know that the mistakes are OK and that failure is the path to improvement. That's important because kids need to feel good. They need to try hard so they can be better, happier, and altogether have a better life.

Picture this. A girl fails a test, but then she gets a second chance. She gets 2 more questions right. It's not much, but it's a lot more to boost her confidence and make her feel like she's doing better. Everyone deserves a second chance. My team's third argument will show that when kids are given a second chance, they will learn from their mistakes. Right now, kids are making the same mistakes over and over again and not being given the opportunities to improve.

After the change, kids will be realising their mistakes and will be using the second chances to improve their work and mistakes. And it could be as simple as spelling a word wrong and then getting it right or doing a math sum incorrectly, getting it explained and then--

[applause]

KATE PRENDEVILLE: I have many problems with what the affirmative team has said. Firstly, they stated that they could put effort in both tests. But if there is no effort in the first test, then why would students decide to just give it their best shot on the second test? And secondly, there are no second chances in the real world, so why would you feed children lies from Year 5 to Year 12? And the moment they step out into the real world, they'll know that second chances aren't an option.

And even if children don't have good test results, it is mostly their fault. And even if the affirmative team is right in saying that it's not their fault, everybody goes through rocky stages through education, and it teaches resilience. As first speaker, I will be talking about how this change would result in inaccurate and unfair testing systems filled with cheating, as well as a large amount of time wasted that could be spent learning.

Now to my first argument. If you put the affirmative's model into place, I assure you it will lead to inaccurate test scores, it will lead to mass amounts of cheating, it's a complete waste of time, and it could be used learning new concepts and ideas. And finally, it will create an unfair learning space for children, the future of our society.

Now, let me explain. It is scientifically proven that humans feel the need to impress each other, especially those smaller and younger-- so in this case, children. If they get a bad test score and they magically receive a second chance to improve, they will do anything they can to impress teachers and parents. And clearly, no child or adult, for a matter of fact, will choose the hard way. So they'll choose the easiest way, and the easiest way to improve is to cheat. And even if it might be harder under the affirmative's model, there is still plenty of ways to cheat throughout tests.

Now, I'm not talking about cheat sheets being sold in dodgy bathrooms. But even just remembering simple answers on accident from your friend's test, for example, it is still classified as cheating. And similar to most things, this will clearly grow over time, leading to our society's future being lazy cheaters. This will obviously have terrible effects on children's education, test scores, and habits. And this must not be put into action.

Not only will this lead to lying cheaters, it will also lead to unfair learning space for children. Let's use an example. We'll say that I've been studying hard and in listening closely in class, and my friend Charlie, let's say, has been messing around and talking during class. There is a math test coming up. I complete the math test and receive an 85%, and I believe this properly represents my score and the speed in my education so far.

Charlie, on the other hand, gets a 50%. And although this correctly represents his learning attitude, he decides that he wants an A. So he marks his test, remembering some of the answers from his friends' and his own and retakes the test, falsely scoring a 90%. In the end, the student with the positive learning patterns and a hard-working attitude scores lower than the lazy, cheating student. This is extremely unfair and will have many long-term, lasting negative impacts on both students, such as self-doubt for the hard-working students and repeated cheating patterns that will continue throughout their whole life for the non-hard-working student.

Now to my next argument on opportunity costs, meaning that there are so many different, more beneficial lessons students could be completing instead of retaking tests that could be used for children to cheat. Right now, Australia is 2 to 3 years behind the rest of the world in core subjects, such as maths, science, and literacy. And the way we're going with art, plays, and languages, for example, it's not like we're improving in any way, shape, or form. It is critical that we catch up to everyone else because our world is advancing, and job opportunities in foreign countries, especially in the future, are looking more successful.

So if Australian children aren't catching up soon, future companies will clearly give open jobs to more educated people. So we must catch up. It is obvious that this model does more harm than good, and for this reason, I'm proud to negate.

[applause]

LIBERTY MACKENZIE: The other team stated that there are no second chances in our world. We have one reason why this is erroneous. Firstly, how can you prove there are no second chances in this world? There are so many second chances that come in people's everyday lives. Maybe you get a callback for a job that you want, or maybe you get into a school after you thought that you wouldn't happen.

What we're trying to prove is that there are many second chances that can come in everyday life. The other team's first idea was that cheating would happen in this model. We have 3 reasons why this is ludicrous. Firstly, as we stated, the teachers would not tell the students what answers they actually got wrong. Instead, they would just tell them what areas they need to study and how they could improve it.

And secondly, in their example, they show that a student just magically somehow got 90% after looking at their answers. However, in our third reason, we say that it's up to the teachers to ensure that students can't cheat, maybe by moving the tables, or any students that they think might be cheating, they might put separately. This is up to the teachers, not up to this team.

The second idea was that there would be opportunities missed. We have 2 reasons why this is baffling. Firstly, we agree that we need to catch up as Australia, and our model does it best. It helps students who need the help. And secondly, even if this model doesn't help some students, we're willing to give that up in order to help the students that need that help.

My team's third argument will show that when kids are given a second chance, they will learn from their mistakes. Right now, kids are making the same mistakes over and over again, and they're not being given the opportunities to improve. After the change, kids will be realising their mistakes and will be using these second chances to improve their work and mistakes. Mistakes can be as simple as a spelling, as misspelling a word or wrongly doing some math, or wrongly doing a math sum incorrectly.

This is because they'll think about the things that they can improve on so that they can learn more about certain areas of things that they're struggling in. That's important because if you don't learn from your mistakes, you'll never learn at all, which can make your life extremely hard. For example, making mistakes and not realising it is not good at all for any future tests. And that's why when kids are given a second chance, they will learn from their mistakes. It starts with one state and ends with the world.

My team's fourth argument will show that if kids get a second chance, they will build up their confidence massively. Right now, kids aren't confident enough. They're always overthinking and stressing about their assignments, which decreases their confidence greatly. Can you believe that the other team wants this?

After the change, kids will be given a second chance. They won't be stressing or overthinking because they have more time to improve their schoolwork and build more confidence. And they know that they can take a leap of faith with their work and experiment with new ideas. This is because they have been given a second chance. And their confidence will spike as their work improves, therefore, leaving the children happy, proud, and confident.

That's important because it's good to have faith in the things you do. And it's also good to have more confidence in yourself and your schoolwork. If these kids aren't confident with their work, it can lead to mental-health issues, feeling lack of expression, and not putting themselves out there.

For example, a child is doing a life-changing test that could determine their whole future. A few weeks after the test, the child finds out that they've completely failed their test, but the child also finds out that because they failed, they can retake this test. So the child spends a little bit of time studying and easily passes the test, improving his chances at going into fancier schools or universities. And that's why if kids get a second chance, their confidence will build greatly. Everyone should be given a second chance.

I would like to now branch off my first speaker's first argument about how this can improve marks. She said that this change can help with HSC scores, school reports, and Years 5 and 6 going to high school. I will now state that this change can help with later life, such as jobs and university, and how it will make them and their parents proud.

Right now, children are not very prepared for later life. Our team thinks that in Years 11 to 12, it's unfair how some tests can determine your future and what university or college you attend. Students are often nervous doing these tests and can easily make many mistakes. Implementing this change could help with improving their scores. This is because children could study their mistakes in areas that they failed in.

This is important because students need to be proud of themselves and feel like they've accomplished something. This change would simply give them a helping hand. And that's why this change can improve students' later life, HSC scores, reports, and making themselves proud. Everyone deserves a second chance.

[applause]

EILI CONSIDINE: The opposition has raised 2 main arguments. It will help their confidence and it will give them a second chance. I have multiple problems why this is completely and utterly ridiculous.

Firstly, a callback isn't a second chance. It just means you did well in the first one, which I'll get to later in my argument. Also, tests don't teach. Staring at a piece of paper not knowing what you're doing isn't going to make you smarter.

Secondly, adding on to that, someone needs to teach you to learn. You can't learn from your mistakes unless someone teaches you if you don't understand them. Also, tests are supposed to test you, and teaching is teaching you. It's called a test, not a teach. So this argument is completely false.

Furthermore, they said they should study to make them smarter. They should just study before the first test. Then there's no need for the second. As well as that, you said the mistakes have to be made to improve. Yet, you're saying they're really, really bad.

Now onto my argument. Right now, kids can bounce back from a small hiccup in their education. If this policy is put into place, kids will have bottom-level resilience and have no sense of the life lesson, there is no second chance in some things, tests being one of them.

Like this debating championship, they currently don't have a second chance. And like this debating championship, they know they have one chance. And like us trying to win, it motivates us, and it will for them to strive for excellence, to the best of their ability. The current testing system shows kids the life lesson by giving them one chance to do well and allows them to bounce back and show resilience.

These are benefits only our side can provide. Giving kids a second chance isn't letting them show resilience or teaching them you only have one chance in life. For example, not making a team, you get one chance, and that works well in today's society. Situations like these are inevitable in life, and it is better to teach them and educate them on how to deal with it than to protect them from real life.

This crucial life skill isn't just useful in your childhood. When you're an adult in situations not doing well in a job interview are also dealt better with resilience. I have clearly stated that being able to deal with situations that will otherwise affect you for the rest of your life is definitely better. It's definitely more important than getting 2 marks better on a test. Even that would be unlikely because if kids know they have a second chance, they'll take advantage of it, not trying at all in the first test, knowing they have a second chance, because why would they?

Besides, no kid wants to double the amount of tests, which is practically what the affirmative is saying. Tell me how many kids you know that are excited when they get tests. None or 1 or 2. The outcome of this is that kids that always expect a second chance at life have no resilience and are clueless for basic life situations and skills. Or you could have a generation who is resilient, understand you get one chance, and can deal with doing badly on something.

Even if this did have some benefits, these benefits will only go towards a small amount of kids, not the gifted kids, because they'll have gotten a good mark on the first test. And the second test would make them stressed. The lazy kids wouldn't try hard on the first test because they see an extra test. Instead, this will only affect the small majority of kids who might see their mistakes. But even then, it would only affect them slightly.

What is currently in place and what the negative is proposing benefits all kids educationally, as my first speaker said, as well as teaching them vital life skills, as I've explained and listed. And for those reasons, it is clear that the kids shouldn't be given a second chance in assignments. For that reason, I am proud to negate. Thanks you.

[applause]

FRANCESCA DOOLEY: In this debate, I saw 2 main questions. Firstly, Will this benefit kids' education? And secondly, Will this result in more cheating? Under the first question, Will this benefit kids education? they said that this will be unfair and a waste of time. We said that it will improve their marks, mental health, and confidence.

It's hard to cheat with our model. The teachers give them the mark they got. And the kids can decide if they want to get a better mark and try again. They don't give them their test so they can look at the answers they got wrong. They just get the mark, and the teachers may suggest some areas that they should study.

They also said it's a waste of time. But some of these tests can determine their future. Is giving yourself a better chance a waste of time? I really don't think so. And sure, some kids may find a way to cheat, but in the long run, mental health and marks will be up in the hole, and this will be better for most kids.

From this, you can clearly see that kids would be better off and much happier. This is what my team has proven to you. Under the second question, 'Will it result in more cheating?' they stated that kids will find ways to cheat and stop getting the right marks for them. We say that they'll learn from their mistakes, and it will be hard for them to cheat.

Learning from their mistakes doesn't really count as cheating. If the teachers give them an area to study, they can learn from this and get better. Just because they got better doesn't mean they technically cheated. It just means they improved.

And again, our model is really hard to cheat with. It would be harder to cheat than to just do the test again. You would want to go to all this trouble just to cheat when they could just study, do it properly and do it again.

From this, you can clearly see that this won't let kids cheat. This is what my team has proven to you. Everyone deserves a second chance. But this isn't the end of my rebuttal because there's a few more things I would like to elaborate on.

They said that there's no second chances in the real world, but school is kind of the real world. So if we give kids second chances at school, we're making the real world have second chances. So it's like not preparing them for the real world. It's making the real world a better place.

They also said that they will see other kids' answers. But this could happen with or without this change. Kids cheat now. It's not going to make them cheat more. It's like the same-- it'll actually be kind of harder for them to cheat. They also said that it's a waste of time, but the lessons are preparing you for the tests. So if you're retaking the test, it means you're studying from what you learned in the lessons.

Now, the team stated that children can't learn from mistakes if someone doesn't teach them. We have 2 reasons why this is counterfactual. Firstly, as we stated, children who hear the areas they need to study. They'll hear what they need to improve on and feel the need to learn more about those areas.

They also said that tests don't teach kids, but in some tests, there are some things that prohibit kids. Maybe they're really upset, or they're feeling down. So it's kind of like giving them a second chance with a better mindset.

They also said that kids have low resilience, that this will make kids have low resilience. But making so many more mistakes lowers your resilience. It makes you feel like you can't do anything. And if you're able to improve, it actually makes you feel like you can do things. You can be better. You can improve.

They also said that kids won't try hard in these tests. But who wants to do more tests? Like, they want to do-- it's not like they'll want to do less on their test because that means they just take another test. So it's either they'll just get a bad mark and not do the second test, or they'll get a bad mark and then have to do another test to improve their mark.

[dinging]

[applause]

HARTLEY DIXON-HOLDEN: I have quite a lot of problems with what the affirmative team has said. But let me start off with the main things, the main arguments they have stated. They have said that-- at first, they said that the biggest issues are mental health, marks, and they should get a second chance. My rebuttal to this is if they're not going to put in effort in the first test, why not bother in the second?

And if you're going to say-- the affirmative team says that, it's because they realised that it's important after the first test. Well, we have lots of tests. And the affirmative team make it out to be, we only have this one block, and then students memories are erased. But they can learn from their mistakes of previous tests without having it to be a double thing with all the negatives of it.

The affirmative team also says that if a kid wants to get into a better high school or something like that and they don't get in because they didn't get that second chance to do better, well, if all of the kids who are doing not as well get a second chance, then everyone is going to be doing better, meaning that schools are going to be highering their standard. So nothing will really change except more academic people who have actually put in a lot of work will be at the same level as everyone else.

The affirmative team also says that they are willing to give up this massive portion of kids who this will greatly affect with all these problems and take this small group of students and say, we're going to improve it for them, even though this will not actually improve it so much for all the reasons we have said, such as the comparative hiring of the overall grade levels.

Also, the affirmative team said this would go to Year 12, as well. But we're going into HC and things like that. So are you saying that kids are going to get a second chance at the HSC? Two things-- completely just weird because that's going to mean that one of the biggest tests that kids will ever take in their life, they will just get a second chance at that. And also, the HSC takes a ridiculously long amount of time to complete. And we should just double that amount of time?

[ding]

Also, the affirmative team has rebutted, saying that school is part of real life for the kids. But we have said at second speaker that it is sheltered and kids are sheltered at school because of things. And they need to learn this. And with going for the affirmative says it would just shelter kids even longer and not build up those proper things they need to learn.

The affirmative team also said things like, school doesn't apply-- in school, it's, again, that school is not sheltered and things like that and that in school, you get lots of second tries. But our example of sports teams, you don't usually get a second try to get into a sports team without waiting quite a while. So would you rather have a world where children are falsely fed information that they will get a second chance at everything they're ever going to do, and become lazy, and just think that they can just cheat, and do that?

Or would you rather have a new generation of kids coming forward, being resilient, and knowing not to cheat, and being ready for later life and for a lot of things? The choice is clear. Thank you.

[applause]

TONY DAVEY: So obviously, the panel wants to begin by congratulating all of the speakers in this debate. We thought that this was a super entertaining and super-smart debate for a couple of obvious reasons. The first is that the teams have obviously done a great job of developing themselves as debaters across their entire primary-school careers but even as we've had a chance to get to know them at camp and they've received feedback from people.

And that made us just super pleased to see some of the strategies we talked about come out. It made this a really, really successful debate. It was also fun, and challenging, and in the end, really, really close. And it was great to see the teams attacking each other and doing a brilliant job on that stance, as well.

So between all of that, we thought that this was an exceptional debate. And it was obvious how these 2 teams made this state final. Congratulations to both of them. Well done.

[applause]

I'll give you 2 quick bits of feedback, and then I'll let you know what the panel thought about, generally, what this would mean for kids' mental health and their well-being and what this would mean for kids' education. So the first bit of feedback is something your adjudicators have been talking to you about a little bit. And it is just to try to do a little bit more to explain the links between what you say is going to happen to people once you bring in this rule or once this rule comes in, how bad these things are going to be, and how we actually ended up at that place.

So if you think this is going to be a problem for resilience, you just need to spend a little bit of more time talking about how that second chance kind of stops children from learning an important lesson, what lessons do they learn from being stuck stewing a result on a test that they can't possibly redo, and just showing us what they're thinking and feeling all the way to the point where they fail to learn resilience.

And kind of the same thing on how are they going to learn from their mistakes on the affirmative. So there were lots of little moments throughout the debate where we thought, you could do a better job of showing us how these students were going to really react to what had happened and end up in the place you are promising us-- more resilience or more education because they've gone back and studied harder. Does that make sense, guys?

And then the other quick bit of feedback is that this debate probably would have improved with just a little bit more clarity from both teams about exactly what they thought this was going to look like in practice when we brought it in schools. So this debate ended up being almost entirely about test taking, which we thought was interesting, but both teams seem to agree to it. So that ended up being quite clear.

But more importantly, we wanted some clarity on, like, exactly how many kids do you think are going to take this up? In what circumstances do you think they're likely to do it? So just more care to talk through the kind of kids who will be doing this redo, do-over, second chance. And it's like, do you think is going to be all of them every test? Do you think it's going to be just a few or a couple of times a year?

We thought that would have made it easier to understand the kinds of benefits and harms that the teams were talking about. Still, that's pretty nitpicky for a spectacular final that we, once again, really enjoyed as a panel. And now to the panel's decision then. So the first thing we asked ourselves was, what would this mean for kids like mental health, and their being, and their mindset?

The affirmative kind of tell us 2 things here. They tell us that, first of all, going into a test because you know it's a one-off, that can be really stressful for you and put pressure on you and that can cause you to freak out, and in the end, maybe not have a good day, which might have some educational problems later on. I thought that was really good.

The neg respond in a couple of different ways. They say, well, sometimes people don't care very much about tests anyway. But more importantly, they tell us that kind of stress builds up your character and makes you a resilient kid.

The other thing that the affirmative tells us is that after the test, when you have no way to go back and fix it, you can end up in this kind of shame spiral. You live with this regret of this answer that you got wrong, and this causes you to beat up on yourself and again, and again, revisit that in your mind. And that can be really bad for your mindset. We thought that that was really clever from the affirmative.

So the negative on this question tells us that most of this stuff is actually good for kids, because it's preparing them for the real world and making them resilient. To some extent, the affirmative messed up on this and they say things like, wait, school is in the real world. And therefore, our thing is teaching them about the real world.

But we did think at the end of this question that the affirmative were able to show that the kind of shame spiral and regret that they might send students into by not giving them a second chance would mean that many of the lessons about resilience were lost. And then, in fact, we'd be better off with people learning to bounce back in a second test. And that's kind of what resilience was all about in the end.

On this question of academic performance, the affirmative tell us a couple of things. The first thing they tell us that we really liked but did not hear enough of was that you might be more likely in your tests or assignments to take a leap of faith, to maybe try a different approach or try some new explanation if you knew you had that safety net of a second chance. But we needed to hear much more about that kind of academic risk-taking for it to be a huge part of this debate.

The other thing they tell us is just that when you do poorly in a test, now you'll be able to learn, and you'll be able to go back and sort of figure out, study the areas that you did poorly in. And that means that overall, you're going to improve your marks and improve your education. And that's going to kind of end up improving everybody's education.

So the negative tells us that that's not going to happen. They're worried, first of all, that now there's no motivation to study for tests the first time around at all and that kids are just going to skate by the first test and then do the second one. We credited what the affirmative said when they said kids don't generally like tests, and that was something that negative had mentioned at different places, as well. And it seemed unlikely that they would want to do a second test or want to fail. So we didn't think it would be that demotivating for kids.

The negative tell us a few things about education. The first thing they tell us is that this is unfair because it means that the lowest students who didn't work hard the first time kind of catch up and close the gap on the students who actually deserve to be getting the high scores and getting into universities. We thought that that was true, but we thought it was also true that sometimes those test scores were unfair anyway.

That there were people who had bad days, or had something going on in their lives, or had a problem during the test, and that that was at least as unfair as marginally closing the gap between the worst and the best students. We also just thought that the harm of those less-good students catching up just wasn't as great as some of the things the affirmative had been talking about.

Lastly, we have this question of whether this encourages cheating in testing, which would obviously be a huge problem for the way our system works. We thought that at the end of the debate, it was probably true that cheating would happen on both sides. The negative had-- the affirmative, sorry, roughly had a plan that didn't seem to encourage cheating that much. And in the end, we're able to show that what the negative were calling cheating maybe looked a lot like going back, and redoing your work, and learning a little bit.

So we did think in the end that this would help those students who had missed out or had a bad day or those lower students who just needed a second chance. And we thought it would improve, in general, the mindset of all students, both before and after a test. And that's why we've unanimously awarded this debate to the affirmative.

[applause]

To both teams, we just want to remind you that this was a smashing, close, and exceptional debate. And that you can obviously be proud of being one of the 2 state finalists in the entire state out of 878 teams. That means that you are something special. And we can't wait to see what the debating careers of both the affirmative and the negative look like in high school.

And that's true for the audience, as well. We can't wait to see you guys as you grow up and get even smarter and run our world. So congratulations to both teams. Thanks for that.

[applause]

FINN THIRKELL: Thank you for that. Please now welcome a representative from Randwick Endeavour to congratulate the winner.

TIFFANY DE LANEROLLE: Congratulations on your win. It was an excellent debate, and we thoroughly enjoyed doing it with you. And we hope to continue debating alongside each other.

[applause]

FINN THIRKELL: Please welcome a member of the winning team to respond.

RUBY DULEY: Thank you, Randwick. You guys were really, really good. And we hope you guys continue debating. Thank you, timekeeper and chairperson. Thank you, audience. Thank you, Mr Frangos. Yeah.

[laughter]

[applause]

TONY DAVEY: 2022 Years 5 and 6 state champions from Alstonville.

[applause]