On Tuesday 18 March, the restored St Paul’s College debating team began with a new challenge - promotion to the 2025 Senior Advanced open league in the Auckland Schools’ Debating competition. After finishing last year 3 wins to 2, the team were very excited to start the season off well - and, when Josh Benoza (1st Speaker), Matthew Blanch (3rd Speaker), Hugo Lloyd (Researcher, Future debater), and myself (2nd Speaker) arrived that afternoon, there was a palpable energy in the room. Receiving our moot, specifically ‘This House would require professional licensing for content creators’ we went on to use our hour of preparation as the negating team well, planning for the debate and forecasting strategy. Entering the debate, against Botany Downs Secondary College, there was no great shift in momentum, remaining fairly equal in spite of Josh’s efforts. The Botany second speaker proved herself a capable orator, presenting points clearly, rebuffed, however, by our second speaker. The third speakers then fought a close battle, won in the end by our own Matthew Blanch, performing remarkably well on his debut, filling some large shoes as a year 12 stepping up.

In the end, both teams were relatively even as normal speakers summed up. The debate then reached the Leader’s reply, an opportunity for the opposing leaders to deliver a summary and final statement in support of their argument. Both second speakers returned to perform the duty, however St Paul’s showed real flair and a better argument, and were returned with hard-fought victory. Ms Haybittle, our most generous and supportive manager, described the victory as ‘glorious’ even… high praise which we are very proud of - and hope to continue into the next debate, on the 1 April, with an even better performance.

The full 2025 team list is below:

Finn Lloyd (Yr 13, Captain)
Josiah Tupa'i (Yr 13)
Mateo Afoa (Yr 13)
Josh Benoza (Yr 13)
Neil Fernandes (Yr 12)
Matthew Blanch (Yr 12)
Hugo Lloyd (Yr 11)

With Thanks,
Finn Lloyd (Year 13)