A win for the Year 12 team of David Walter, Max McKenzie and James McLeay in the Southland Debating Competition.

The Southland Boys’ High School Debaters set forth to battle the other Southland schools on Saturday the 2nd of September. Southland Boys' High School had 8 teams entered in the Southland Debating Competition and, as our debating club has grown rapidly, had more teams competing than any other school.

This year for the first time we had a Year 7/8 team entered with William Cahill and Lucas Jackson valiantly iron manning their debates. This meant they were a man down and William had to be 1st, 3rd and leaders reply, with Lucas speaking at 2nd.

Our Year 10 team won the junior competition against Southland Girls' High School - the first time we have won this trophy! The topic was: 'This house would introduce a 50/50 gender quota in Parliament'. 

The Year 13 team of Ruairidh MacCallum, Ben Steininger and Raymond Xie-Jones were unlucky not to be in a SBHS v SBHS final against the Year 12 team of David Walter, Max McKenzie and James McLeay. This would have been an epic battle of intellect! Instead, the final saw the Year 12 team pitted against James Hargest. The moot was: 'This house would remove gender stereotypes from fairytales'. Congratulations go to the Year 12's, who walked away with the win. It is the first time Southland Boys' High School has been named on the 30-year-old Southland Senior Debating Shield!

David Walters: Best Speaker Year 12

Ben Steininger: Best Speaker Year 13

Overall, it was a very enjoyable day for everyone, where the boys proved they could develop a logical argument and articulate it eloquently. Congratulations, we are very proud of you all.