Video transcript
NSW Premier's Debating Challenge 2024 – Primary Schools State Debating Championships Final

[intro music]

WINTER WAWN: Welcome to the state final of the Primary Schools State Debating Championships. My name is Winter Wawn from Russell Lea Public School, and the timekeeper today is Summah from South Grafton Public School.

Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on traditional First Nations land. And on behalf of the Department of Education, I want to show my respects to the Elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today. The affirmative team today represents the New England region.

Their first speaker is Maggie, second speaker Emily, third speaker Naomi, and fourth speaker Abby. The negative team represents the Sydney region. Their first speaker is Willow, second speaker Lyla, third speaker Jaime, and fourth speaker Ellie-Rose. The adjudicators for this debate are Ally, Neva, Gabby and Amy. The speaking time for this debate is 4 minutes.

There will be a warning bell at 3 minutes, 2 bells at 4 minutes and a continuous bell at 5 minutes. The topic for this debate is 'That kids should have to complete an overnight camping and hiking trip in order to graduate primary schoo'l. Now, please welcome the first affirmative speaker to open the debate, and also take a moment to make sure all mobile phones are switched off.

[applause]

MARGARET BUCKLEY: Ladies and gentlemen, there is a massive problem. Right now, kids aren't getting a chance to properly socialise with their group in a low-pressure situation, out and about. This will be my first argument.

My second argument will talk about how this trip will teach kids about independence and organisation. Finally, our third argument will show how this trip will provide a different form of education. Now moving into my definition.

We define the topic as Year 6 students in NSW should complete an overnight, 3-day camping trip to experience the wilderness and lessons it can teach them in order to graduate primary school. This camping and hiking trip will take place at the closest appropriate resort to help keep costs low. If this change is successful, it will be implemented through Australia by the end of 2025.

My first argument will talk about how students will get a chance to reset and socialise with others while they're on this trip. Right now, there are 2 main groups of kids. First, there are kids who want to make friends, but are usually in one particular friend group. They feel awkward trying to make new friends because, in a school setting, setting in can be daunting inviting people to sit with you.

There are also the kids who don't have a set group, and are often lonely and sit alone. These people also feel quite awkward trying to approach others. And this can lead to loneliness throughout high school and even uni. This makes this group especially important.

However, we can see that both groups are affected by the intimidating school environment. After the change, both groups of students will be benefited. The first group with friends will be able to make new friends by being together in a cabin or putting up in a tent.

The second group of kids are also better off, as they will be placed in groups with others. And they will be an outside of school setting while camping, so they can talk about camping and make new friends.

This is far more important than what's happening right now in school settings, as both groups of kids are being benefited. And this change is especially important for the loners, as we are helping them come out of their comfort zone. And anyone can see that this is more important than a few kids who may just whine.

For example, we know that loners, who typically sit on their own, usually don't even change this behaviour because they don't have the opportunity to. So we feel by prioritising this group, we are setting them up for the future, which I'll expand on my second argument.

Our team's second argument is about independence. Right now, children don't get many opportunities to learn about responsibility, which is important, as they are going into high school, and their future is very important. And children will go to more classes in high school.

They will go to different rooms. They'll have different teachers. And they'll have more and more and different types of homework. And this will just stress them out.

But if they have responsibilities, they will be fine--

[bell rings once]

--with this change. But after the change, students will be taught life skills, organisation and how to take care of themselves. This will help in their future.

For example, think of the typical Year 6 students at school. They have a set schedule. They go to class. They have lunch. They get told what to do by their teachers. And they get help from the teachers.

But if this change went ahead, they would learn independence, which will help in the future. They will be learning simple ways, like getting around all these massive campuses. They will learn how to set up tents, for example. Setting up tents could really help their independence.

They will be doing tasks. And no one will be helping them, and telling them exactly what to do and which steps to do first, so they will learn heaps of independence and responsibilities. This is way more important than the status quo because the massive group of Year 6 students that is affected by this trip will learn independence and responsibility, which will help in their future, like high school. I've already told you about, tasks--

[bell rings twice]

--which people won't be doing for them. And when they get a job, they'll need to do stuff by themselves. And also, when they are old enough to live by themselves, they will need to know how to take care of themselves. Responsibility is more important because your ability to get through school depends on this skill, so it may improve all aspects of your school life and how life happens. And you need responsibility. Thank you.

[applause]

WILLOW PARRY: The affirmative team tried to tell you that kids aren't socialising at school, but this argument is flawed in so many different ways. One, kids socialise every day. Not every child doesn't have a friend group.

Lunch and school recess breaks, that's socialising. You sit with your friends, hang out and play. Not every student is lonely. And, 2, if you want kids to socialise, there are so many better ways than indirectly threatening them. You're basically saying, make friends or stay in primary school forever. This is ridiculous.

Now to start my team's case. We agree with the affirmative team's definition, but we oppose the topic. I, the first speaker, will be showing you how students have the right to choice and how this change will put students and teachers in danger. My second speaker will be covering the stakeholders in this debate and how they will be affected. And my third speaker will sum up our case.

Our status quo is that kids already have school camps that are both recreational and educational. These camps are also optional, which gives students and parents the right of choice, which I will later elaborate on. Kids who want to go hiking and camping can go in their free time with a parental guardian. To graduate Year 6, students don't need to complete any tasks at all.

Now, to my first and most important argument, the right of choice. Right now, school camps are run once a year for Year 5 and 6 students and sometimes Year 3 and 4 students. These camps are completely optional, meaning students don't have to go if they don't want to. And parents have the ability to keep their kids at home if they think the camp is too dangerous, too expensive or not suitable for their child.

Students and parents are given the right of choice regarding these annual school camps. After the affirmative team's model comes into play, students will be forced into attending these school camps, even if they don't want to go or aren't able to complete the activities within the camp because these poor Year 6 students want to graduate school.

If students aren't capable of participating, this means they'll be stuck as Year 6 forever. It's so unreasonable to complete a school camp just to graduate Year 6. Specifically, it's absolutely ridiculous to put yourself in danger and have an important right that you deserve taken away from you, just to move from primary school to high school.

This is so important to this debate because it proves that these camps are completely unnecessary, affecting children and parents negatively. Children and parents deserve the right of choice. And by implementing this affirmative team model, it's exactly what's being taken away from them. As the negative team, we want to prevent this from happening, which is why we should not have to complete an overnight camping and hiking trip in order to graduate primary school.

My team's second argument is that hiking and camping trips are extremely dangerous. We all know that these hikes would probably be at beginner level, but even then, these trips would still be dangerous. The definition of a hike is, basically, trekking through rough and rocky terrain, not specifically rocky, but it still has to be a difficult terrain to be classified as a hike. Hiking poses many--

[bells rings once]

--threats to a student and teachers' physical health. Both parties involved could break a leg or cut themselves badly on these rocks. What happens then? These students and teachers would have to be rushed to hospitals, while in the midst of wildlife and other terrain that is quite isolated from these facilities that could actually help the people being involved.

The wildlife itself can also be quite threatening to people, as well. On these hikes, there are often insects, birds and marsupials that pose a threat to our very existence. In the Australian wildlife, there are 2 animals specifically that are venomous and dangerous. They are also inescapable when venturing into the Australian bush-- snakes and spiders.

Red-bellied black snakes, brown snakes, inland taipans, they all live in the Australian bush and are incredibly deadly, not to mention funnel-web spiders, redback spiders, and wolf spiders. These animals are a part of Australian life. But when camping, they are much harder to control. We are putting our life in danger by going on these camps, just to graduate primary school. If I haven't proven to you that these trips--

[bell rings twice]

--will be extremely unsafe, then I don't know what will convince you. This is important to this debate because if the affirmative team are going to force primary school students to hike and camp just to graduate high school, they should at least be safe.

Putting yourself in serious danger just to graduate primary school is absolutely absurd. We, the negative team, disagree with everything the affirmative team are trying to tell you. You must clearly see that we should not have to complete an overnight camping and a hiking trip in order to graduate primary school.

[applause]

EMILY CROCKER: The first negative stated that this would take away their right of choice, but most kids go on the normal camping trips anyway, so this doesn't make any sense to us. They also stated that this would be unsafe, but no school would ever purposely put their kids in danger. It makes no sense and is completely unreal in this situation.

They also stated that not every child is lonely. While that is true, there still is a lot that are. And these are the most vulnerable stakeholders in this debate. We need to care about them. And our argument is helping them. They're just ignoring them.

They also stated that the animals would be too dangerous. Well, a lot of kids are taught about these animals, and they'll know lots about them. Plus, teachers would have first aid kits and first aid training.

Do you really think that teachers are going to send their kids to a snake-ridden area where a bunch of spiders are going to kill them? No. They're going to put as many safety precautions in place as possible so that this can go ahead.

Good morning, chairperson and audience. My team's third argument will show that by allowing these primary school students to go on an overnight camping and hiking trip, it will teach children more about wildlife. Right now, lots of schools are teaching their students about Australian wildlife.

The students are taught this inside a classroom where they can't experience it properly. This then decreases their learning experience because they aren't learning nearly as enough as they could be. After the change, children will get to learn about the wildlife properly.

Their learning experience will be greatly improved, as they can see what they are learning. Instead of being in class, having to listen to your teacher drone on about how a kangaroo acts in the wild, what it looks like and all the different types, you can see them up close. Students don't have to infer about an animal's behaviour based on something they read off a website. They can actually see the behaviour themselves now.

If somebody could only see in black and white and were taught how humans and other mammals perceive colour, would they learn more or stay at the same level of knowledge if they were then given the chance to see in colour? They would most likely learn more. That's exactly what's happening here.

On these camping trips, now, instead of reading about somebody else's perspective or observation of these animals, they can see them for themselves and explain behaviours in a way that they can understand, without lots of fancy language that they don't understand going over their head, not helping them to learn anything. This is important because it would be an amazing educational experience. And it will be very practical, as most towns and cities already have a camping and hiking trail.

[bell rings once]

You should care more about this because Year 6 students' education is far more important than what the other teams stated. And this is why our idea should win us the debate.

[applause]

LYLA TOH: The affirmative team stated that they will learn more about animals on this hiking trip and won't be killed by insects. They said that we actually stated that. But first of all, we are not saying that these insects will directly kill you, it's that they are prone to harming you more because there's more of them in the hiking setting than when you're at school or when you go to camp in Canberra.

Also, if these schools are really passionate about learning about these animals and wildlife, then they can organise a trip to the zoo. These zoos have zookeepers that can actually give you information, while teachers have to learn more about different types of animals that they don't actually know will be in the wildlife setting. And they are near, but they're safe enough that they won't actually use violence. If you are near to a wildlife animal that isn't actually controlled, you don't know what they can do because you might be posing a threat to their nest or et cetera.

The affirmative team also stated that teachers will boss students around at school. And this camp will teach them more independence. We believe that this is wrong, as indirectly telling these students that they have to attend this hiking camp just to graduate primary school is downright controlling already. So they are not actually teaching them independence. They are just teaching them obedience, but in actually a bad way.

We are not saying that gaining social skills or independence and other traits are bad. We think that these schools should just not be putting graduating primary school on the line. By the end of my speech, I will prove how both students and parents will face more harms and complications. That is more important than the benefits the affirmative team proposed from their model.

My team's third argument will demonstrate how students should receive a choice to opt out to this camp and that the rule is that in order to graduate primary school is actually really harsh. Right now, multiple schools hold school camps for Years 5 and 6s as an educational, while fun, trip. It is essentially a little reward for these students for their good work in school, but it is still optional.

After the change, students will feel rather pressured to attend these camps, as the thought of not being able to graduate primary school would scare them. Like I said before, most schools already have camps, but give students the choice to going, as most of the students do attend. But the school is considerate of the students that may have homesickness and not wanting to attend because they miss their parents.

Implementing this model would just be insensitive to the minority groups. What affirmative may suggest from this model is that they would like to promote sociable traits. However, there are other camps, such as Canberra Camp, that students attend in Year 6, which teaches them the basic knowledge of parliament and government and also teaches them leadership.

We also play this game called Parliament, where we can work together as a team to discuss real-world problems. We believe that learning this information in Canberra Camp is more important, as it gives us real-life examples of how they would need to vote or how politicians talk about real-world issues together, which also promotes social skills. This hiking trip won't be as beneficial because it is set in rural areas. Now, my fourth argument.

[bell rings once]

I would like to acknowledge the minority of students in Australia, students who aren't physically able to attend this camp. Right now, there are students who have allergies, injuries, or a disability that make it hard for them to attend a camp.

Despite this, it does depend on how dangerous the setting would be in order to decide whether they are capable to attend or not. After the change, as their graduating camp is set in one specific setting, which is in the hiking and mountain areas, this minority of students will have a way bigger chance of not actually attending and potentially not actually graduating.

Like my first speaker stated, the setting poses a harm towards the majority of students already, so it would not be likely that these students could attend and, like the topic said, not being able to graduate. This is important because if we held a camp in a less dangerous setting, for example, Canberra, there is a higher chance of attending, as activities would not be so physically hard, like hiking, and services and equipment is within--

[bell rings twice]

--reach if a worst-case scenario arises. And that's why kids should not have to complete an overnight trip for camping and hiking in order to graduate from primary school.

My team's fifth argument will prove how parents might not want their child to attend a hiking trip like this. Right now, parents have to give consent and receive information about the camp that their child might attend. So as a parent, they find out whether it's safe or suitable for their child.

After the change, schools are stripping both stakeholders' right to choice but, in this case, parental discretion. This stripping off of rights is not actually that direct. However, if a parent is genuinely worried for their child to attend this specific camp, they would feel like the decision for their child's attendance will decide whether or not they graduate. This puts a huge weight on their shoulders.

This model interrupts their role as a parent, as they have the weight on their shoulders on their child's future. If these parents do give in order to make their child graduate, there is a high chance of the worst-case scenario to arise. And that's why affirmative's model should not be implemented. My team's sixth argument will--

[bells rings 4 times]

--thank you.

[applause]

SUBHA NAOMI HOQUE: OK. So throughout this debate, there have been 3 main points I have noticed that have been debated. So, firstly, about the dangers of this camp; secondly, about how kids would be influenced socially; and thirdly, about the right of choice and how we are completely removing that. So the opposition's strongest cases are about the dangers and the right of choice. So those 2 I will be focusing on first.

So, firstly, with the dangers, we hear from the opposition that a hiking trail is extremely dangerous. You could break a leg, get yourself cut. While we do agree that there are some dangers to hiking, there are to every trip you go on.

You can go to Canberra. You might still break a leg. And also, there's the added risk of traffic. And so we think that while hiking trails do pose a danger, they aren't as significant as we think because every trip does. And also, with hiking, there would obviously be teacher supervision.

I don't think anyone would be unsupervised to the point where they might break a limb. And even if they do, there are obviously medical assistance there. So we think it's not that big of a danger.

Also, we hear about wildlife hurting you. We'd like to say that, firstly, the government, your teachers and your school would not send you to a place where there's so much extremely dangerous wildlife to the point where you have 100% chance of getting hurt. So we think it's quite unreasonable to make that claim.

And also, again, there are dangers everywhere. And with wildlife hurting you, as we brought up in our third argument, these kids will be informed about the wildlife and will get a chance to see it. So we think it's more important that they get a chance to have hands-on education than like a simple risk of wildlife hurting you.

So yeah, we also hear from the opposition that if you want to learn about animals, go to a zoo. We think that this is a completely different effect because they're behind a cage. You're not seeing them in their natural habitat. And more importantly, you're not seeing how they would normally behave.

Whereas, in Oz, you get an organic, I guess, view of what animals look like and behave like in their natural habitat. So we think that this is more beneficial than simply going to a zoo.

OK, now, I'd like to move on to the right of choice. So we hear from the opposition that you and your parents should always have the right of choice to say no, and that putting graduation from primary school on the line is really extreme. We hear that parents should be able to say no because of the dangers. But as I have told you, there aren't that many dangers.

And also, parents know that this trip is better for their kids simply because of the socialising experience, which I will talk about later, and because of the fact that you get more education and you're out in the wild, right? You get to see things that you probably wouldn't see in a city or even in a town at school. So we think it's like a new perspective.

[bell rings once]

Also, with the right of choice, we hear that kids shouldn't be forced into this. But you know something that's really good for you and you still have to go to? School, OK? There are things like that you still have to go to because everyone knows that it's good for you, right, with your education.

So we think this is another one of those experiences. And we think it's quite a small sacrifice to give up the small right of choice for this educational experience and the social experience. Now I'd like to move on to a third point. This is one of our strongest cases in our side of the debate.

We say that a lot of kids don't get the chance to socialise. These are the most vulnerable group. These kids, they may never have the chance to socialise because in a school environment, you're surrounded by these friend groups. And it's really intimidating.

As a kid, you feel the need to sit with friends and have friends throughout school. However, you can't really approach anyone because it's quite awkward. And they might say no, right? That's really scary.

[bell rings twice]

Whereas, we think, in this situation, it's easier because you'll be in a cabin group with friends, so the close proximity will actually help you be friends. Also, you'll have a topic to talk about, as was briefly mentioned by my first speaker, because you're on a camping trip. You'll get to bond over the experience. And that's like sacred experience that you can take with you through high school.

And those abilities are simply just more important than kids who might not want to go. So we think that, overall, the social benefits of especially the kids who don't have friends, but also the kids that do are way more important and can be taken with you through the rest of your life, same with skills like responsibility and organisation.

These skills can be taken with you through the rest of your life. Whereas, on the opposition side, we hear about a mindset where, oh, I don't want to do this because I'm scared or I'll miss my mum. I think that's a little sacrifice that isn't fair to address--

[bell rings 3 times]

[applause]

JAIME GOLDSMITH: I seek 3 questions in this debate. Is this fair? How will this affect the stakeholders? And how big is this already existing problem?

My first speaker gave examples and showed you issues on how children deserve the right of choice because it's their life, and how their parents are also responsible for their child, and how we shouldn't be cutting out 2 rights for hiking and how this rule can also be very unsafe to these kids. The opposition team stated that having camps like hiking will teach children responsibility. We are all for kids learning responsibility, especially before high school. But we, the negatives, strongly believe that the affirmative is taking this the wrong way.

An overnight trip where you hike won't change much. There are also so many other ways for kids to learn this skill. Some might join the SRC or at other camps like Canberra Camp, where you learn about Parliament. And you also learn to take care of yourself.

But hiking, that will make absolutely no difference. The only difference it might make is some sore and injured legs after the camp is done. And not being able to graduate until you hike is really just unbelievable. Like my second speaker states, these minority groups that can't participate in these hikes are a lot more people than you would think.

People that includes kids with severe allergies to certain insects or grass and people with different types of disabilities that stop them from doing this. This is why the first point is unfair. Because after this rule is forced onto children, it will be to too many people.

The affirmative said that kids already go on school camps, so it doesn't make sense why we are bringing up the right of choice. Well, I can tell you, those camps are optional. And you can sign a permission form. This hiking trip is the complete opposite.

The affirmative made a whole argument that a hiking trip will make you look at the environment in a new perspective. Well, there are many environmental programs you can join, like the Game-Changer Challenge and et cetera, but you get to choose if you want to do this. If children were excited about the environment, they would study it and not be forced with people they might not even like.

So how will this affect these certain stakeholders? My second speaker actually went into characterisation and gave examples on how this rule is so much less important than other camps. So the right of choice must be more important than this overnight hiking trip if even another camp can beat it, too.

The opposition stated that this camp will have educational benefits. We disagree because the actual camp itself is overnight, which means it's only going to be one night. So it will basically be a hike, a sleep overnight, and then going back to school again.

This is simply unneeded, when we could be spending this time on learning actual stuff at school. The opposition team said that this would help kids socialise in a low-pressure situation. We, the negative, absolutely disagree.

[bell rings once]

You can socialise at school with the people you want to hang out with. In fact, we believe that this would increase and start bullying. Students aren't expected to get along with everyone, so they just independently keep their distance. But by being forced into a cabin with an activity group with someone that is your bully will not resolve these issues and only cause consequences. And we believe, as the negative, in kids' rights.

The opposition team came forward and talked about how these camps will make a difference and be overall better for children. But hiking is the only difference in this rule. Children still go on camps. Children still learn to better themselves, just not with a hike in it.

So on to question 3. How big is this already existing problem? The affirmative team said that these are dangers at every camp and that you could injure yourself at Canberra because hiking is a way bigger risk and going to Parliament House.

[bell rings twice]

Say that your parents aren't letting you going to Parliament House. It is their choice because it is optional. We believe in the right to choose. And we, the negative, believe this problem is not big at all. It's tiny.

In fact, we believe this problem is non-existent. I know that not many people have seen someone complain about graduating and having an optional fun camp. Now, I can proudly and confidently say that this rule will be unfair, if enforced. It will be unsafe. It won't really benefit anyone. And the right of choice is so extremely more important than hiking on a camp.

[applause]

NEVA MIKULIC: All right. Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for your patience during our deliberation. As the length of the deliberation probably indicates, this was a very good and a very close debate. The panel did initially come to a split, but we now have a 3-1 majority. So here I am to announce the result.

What I'm going to do in this adjudication is I'll firstly give one quick piece of general feedback to both teams. Then I'll go through the issues in the debate and explain which arguments the panel found persuasive and why. And then, at the end, I'll announce the result.

Let's start with general feedback. As I said, this was an excellent debate. There were lots of interesting, sophisticated and well-explained arguments made, so both teams should feel really proud of how well they did.

The one thing that we think could have been better in this debate is that both teams identify, at various points, that this policy might be similar to school camp, but we thought teams needed to spend more time differentiating as to whether this was better or worse than current things like school camps so explaining what were the ways in which this was different.

So on affirmative that might be, what were the new socialisation benefits and the new educational benefits that were provided? And on negative, that might be explaining why it's even more dangerous and more risky than current camps. All right, with that general feedback out of the way, let's get on to the debate.

We think there are 4 parts to this debate-- firstly, safety, then socialisation, education and, finally, fairness. On safety, negative characterises that this policy is likely to be very unsafe. There's lots of dangerous wildlife, kids are isolated from medical services and they might be in a dangerous terrain.

Affirmative has a series of responses which we think mitigate the safety risk reasonably well. They explain schools can manage this risk by providing teachers with first aid training and medical kits. They explain schools will select places that are less dangerous.

They say schools can educate kids about how to manage wildlife. And they say that some level of risk exists in, well, pretty much everything, so this isn't so much worse. We think, at the end of the debate, affirmative are able to prove that it's sufficiently safe that we would let kids go on this camp. But we do think it's more risky than existing school camps and sending kids to Canberra.

All right. Let's talk about socialisation. Affirmative says, at the moment, some kids are lonely. And now, they get to socialise by sharing a tent or a cabin with other kids. And they have shared experiences to talk about.

Negative says there are other ways to socialise, like kids can talk to each other at school and also at other camps. We hear late in the debate, so we're not able to credit it, that some kids might even get bullied and that that might be bad. The issue we had with the socialisation argument is we felt that affirmative didn't do enough to explain why this socialisation was unique to kids being on outdoor hiking camps.

And also, we thought it wasn't super clear why the particular kids that were lonely were the kids who otherwise wouldn't go on school camp anyway. So we needed a little bit more detail to lock in a really clear benefit on socialisation. So, so far, we think it's sufficiently safe, but there's no obvious socialisation benefit.

Let's then talk about education and life skills. Affirmative makes 2 claims. Their first claim is kids will learn to be independent, and they'll have life skills. Negative says we can get this in other ways, like school camps.

Again, this is where the general feedback of explaining why this was different to a school camp or why it's better or worse would have been really useful in breaking this close split. Ultimately, the panel felt we were a little bit unclear on what particular skills it was that kids were learning that they weren't able to get in other ways.

The second claim made by affirmative is that they can learn content. So they can learn about things like wildlife and how it behaves. Negative responds by saying they can do this in classrooms and at a zoo. And again, we think we needed a little bit more explanation of why being outdoors, specifically in a hiking environment, made such a big difference to the ways in which kids are care and understand wildlife.

I think there are some reasons you can give to explain why that claim is true, right? Maybe they care more about the wildlife when they've seen it more around them. But we think these reasons, unfortunately, aren't clearly provided by affirmative. And we think also, at times, we needed a bit more explanation of why we should care a lot about kids learning about wildlife in general, as well, to explain to us why this educational benefit was so important.

On to the final issue of this debate then, which is, is this policy fair? Negative has 2 arguments. Their first claim is a claim about freedom of choice, both of kids and of parents, where they say it's wrong to force people to do things that they don't want to do.

We think affirmative has really clever responses to this argument. So they say that we force kids to do things all the time that are good for them, but that they don't want to do, like making them go to school. We think these responses are really smart. However, they obviously rely on the idea that this is, in fact, a good thing for kids to do. So in the absence of a really clear, unique reason why these camps provide kids with such a large benefit that they can't get in other ways, we think these responses probably don't get over the way in which negative describes this as burdensome.

The second argument negative makes about fairness is they say there's a small set of kids that this is really bad for, kids who might be homesick, or have allergies or disabilities which make this camp hard for them to do. This never receives an explicit response from affirmative, but we think it's probably reasonable to assume, given affirmative has explained that they can do things like manage risk and safety, that there would be ways to manage these kids going to this camp. But, obviously, in the absence of a super clear response, we do have to credit some level of harm, maybe, or burden that exists to these kids.

So at the end of this debate, we do think there's some elevated risk of safety, though we don't think it's super large. And while we think there's no clear, unique benefit to socialisation or education, we then weigh the harms to incurring on people's choice and the burden that it places to a small set of kids as being slightly higher. So for that reason, in a very close debate, the panel awarded this debate to the negative team.

[applause]

WINTER WAWN: Thank you for that. Please now welcome a representative from New England region to congratulate the winners.

[applause]

ABIGAIL MURRAY: Thank you for debating against us. And thank you for the challenge. Please continue to debate in the future. You're really good. Congratulations on the win. We had a lot of fun, and we are honoured to even made it this far. Thank you, chairperson, audience. And thank you, adjudicators.

[applause]

WINTER WAWN: Please welcome a member of the winning team to respond.

[applause]

ELANOR-ROSE WIMBLE: Thank you so much, guys. This was a really, really hard debate. You're awesome debaters. Thank you, adjudicators. And thank you, audience, for attending. We never really thought we could get this far, so thank you so much.

[applause]