Young Debaters Take on Canadian Junior National Debate Tournament

This past weekend, Sokha Ebert '30 and Altyn Hood '29 travelled to Halifax Grammar School to compete in the Canadian Junior National Debate Tournament. We were fortunate to have the tournament hosted in our home province where we met the top eight debaters from each province and territory.

The two boys were met with competitors who had both age and years of experience on their side and used this experience as a powerful opportunity to learn from some of the country's strongest debaters and public speakers. Sokha and Altyn competed in six rounds of debate with topics including electoral reform, the housing crisis, food security, and a variety of other challenging areas of current discussion and policy reform. In all rounds, there was a narrow margin to victory with competitors and judges commenting on the depth of thought and argument construction of these Grade 6 and 7 students of which they were the ONLY competitors in these age ranges at this tournament.

Both students had a crowd of supporters with both having grandparents in attendance to cheer them on. Sokha’s grandparents, Marlene and Pat Kuntz, flew in from Chepstow, Ontario and Altyn’s grandparents, Peggy and Dave Hood, joined us from Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, to fill the debate rooms with encouragement and pride. It was a wonderful weekend celebrating all that these two have accomplished and as a school, we are so incredibly proud of them.