As House Co-ordinator, I was able to select four new Senior House Captains for 2022/23 to help me run House and Sport events for the next year. This involves things like co-ordinating lunch time activities, coaching teams, carnivals, end of year BBQ and attending the 2022 Sports Leadership Summit this Friday in Penrith. After 10 students applied for this role by filling in an application form and attending an interview these four were chosen from Year 12.

Congratulations to Wade B, Lacey E, Otto K and Millie T.

I look forward to working with these students over the next year.

Our wonderful Stage 5 students participated in the Josie Mitchell debating competition at St Brigid’s Lake Munmorah on Thursday 16 November. We brought two teams to participate (Team B filling in for St Joseph’s who had to pull out of the competition at the last minute) against four other schools. 

Team A consisted of: Luke J, Tirzah H, Lily M, Matilda W 

Team B consisted of: Isaiah F, Cooper L, Dominic H, Grace R

Team A was given the following topics:

• That social media companies should proactively censor extremist comments on their platforms. (Affirmative)
• That victims of crime should be allowed to choose a punishment for the person who offended against them.(Negative)

Team B had to debate these topics:

• That Medicare should cover elective cosmetic surgery​.(Affirmative)
• That all parents should be able to choose the gender of their child.(Negative)

Congratulations to Team A who won both of their debates convincingly.

Team B also did impressively, narrowly losing the first debate (on cosmetic surgery) but winning the second one.

This meant that Team A sailed through to the finals where they had no more than 1 hour to prepare a response to the topic of: It is more important to be beautiful than to be intelligent (affirmative).

In the meantime, Team B participated in an impromptu topic of their own which was: Parents should have the right to spy on their children (negative)…..And the results were….

Team A won the final, meaning that Green Point have won the competition for 2022. 

There was a really solid sense of rapport and camaraderie evident especially within Team A which helped to give them an edge over the competition. Several of these students have never debated before. I was also really impressed with Team B who were not really given ample time to formulate and martial their arguments before the day but did particularly well (especially Isaiah F).  What was particularly gratifying however was to see the way the students’ countenances brighten with confidence over the course of the day.  It has really been a beneficial experience for them.

Mr Michael Samild (Secondary English Teacher)