For over thirty years, Debating SA has been South Australia’s leading debating organisation, providing supportive and challenging opportunities for students of all abilities. Our competition has over 1400 students forming 300 teams from 60+ schools.
We are honoured to have the support of Her Excellency The Honourable Frances Adamson AC, Governor of South Australia.
Our aims
- Actively promote debating, free speech, and debating-related activities that enable young people to become creative, active and knowledgeable citizens.
- Actively lead the way in providing comprehensive training to young people to enable participation and excellence in all aspects of debating.
- Provide a diverse debating program of substance whereby people of all ages can practise and improve their skills with participants from other schools or groups.
- Develop world-class training and resource materials that will assist in the promotion of debating at all levels.
- Encourage schools from across all sectors to fully participate.
- Foster a network of adjudicators and debaters keen to promote our organisation and debating in South Australia.
Thinking and research skills
- Analytical thinking skills.
- The ability to think clearly under pressure.
- A strong sense of curiosity and a love of learning about issues and the world around them.
- An ability to gather and evaluate information from a range of sources.
- Informed exchange of ideas.
- Initiative in applying thinking skills critically and creatively.
Communication skills
- Coherent and confident expression of ideas in collaboration with teammates.
- The ability to coherently and convincingly argue a point of view for their team, which they may not personally support.
- Public speaking skills.
- Word power and strength of language.
Social skills
- Self-esteem and self-confidence.
- A sense of understanding, tolerance and acceptance of different views on issues.
- Respect of the right of others to hold differing and alternative ideas.
Sportsmanship
- Generosity of spirit between participants, across all school sectors.
Teamwork and sportsmanship. - Valuing participation more than the outcome.
- A sense of responsibility to be humble in victory and gracious in defeat.
The ability to respond appropriately to constructive feedback.
As a not-for-profit association, we welcome and actively encourage participation of students from all three schooling sectors: Government, Catholic Education and Independent.
We conduct an extensive range of training programs for students, teachers, coaches from beginner level to advanced and ongoing development. Our student programs are designed to give participants practical hands-on experience with the concepts and rules of debating, as well as associated skills from the disciplines of public speaking and philosophy. Our teacher and coach programs offer high quality Professional Learning to participants that is mapped against the AITSL Teacher Standards.
Our adjudication program is South Australia’s most detailed and rigorous to ensure that we provide a high standard of feedback to participants to develop their skills in competitive debating. We actively monitor, support and build capacity in our adjudicators to continually improve their practice as mentors for young people. Our adjudicators are also available for hire for corporate and intercollegiate debates.
As an independent organisation, free from the constraints of a national body, we have tailored our program to meet the local needs of South Australian students so that they are nurtured to become “…confident and creative individuals, successful learners, and active and informed members of the community” in line with the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration 2019; an educational declaration which has the support of all Australian State and Territory Education Ministers.
Our program has strong links to the Australian Curriculum: English and the Australian Curriculum General Capabilities, providing schools the ability to extend students’ opportunities to engage with the core curriculum.
Debaters go on to be our leaders in society across a diverse range of disciplines and industries, and for some it is the stepping-stone that changes their life.
