Bethany McIntosh claimed second place at a recent state debating challenge as part of the Riverina team.
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This came a week after her and the rest of the Griffith East Primary School took out the NSW Premier’s Debating Challenge.
She said it was hard work and a little nerve-wracking.
“I knew a lot of people there from the other state competition that I'd already been to but there were a lot of really, really good people there,” she said.
“We won the whole first day, three matches.”
The second day they got a needed shock to the system.
“We went into the second day and lost the first match, which was a bit bad, but we had to lose,” she said.
“We then won right away after that and then we played the North Coast in the semis and we beat them for the second time in the competition.”
Overall they won five out of seven debates.
They made it to the state final where they lost to a very well prepared Northern Sydney side with the topic of 'we should force the curriculum to have two of hours of charity work for kids year 5 to 12. They were the negative.
“They (Northern Sydney) had five people, four coaches and four days of training, so they had a bit on us,” she said.
“I think that if we weren't so confident about how we'd gone day one we would've had a better chance at winning the final, but we really had no idea what charity work really classified as.
“Whether it was going to the library and helping out there or if you legitimately had to volunteer somewhere.”
Just as she did in the Premier’s Debating Challenge she spoke in her favoured position (third) for the entire event.
She was pleased with the result and enjoyed one of the victories more than others.
“We got to debate 'that we should ban recreational hunting' which was really good because we were against people from the city who didn't even really know what it was,” she said.
“I think we were pretty happy with the result, the Riverina has only won the competition twice so still it's a pretty big achievement.
“It was really good and we learned a lot of stuff so it was definitely worth while.”