Societies and Societies Services
Debating Teacher-in-charge: Mr Cedric van Dyk Coach: Coach Mathew Butler Adam (University of Cape Town) Head: Cara Mazetti-Claassen Deputy: Ameerah Allie Committee: Saeeda Bassardien, Angeliki Carvounes, Tessa Collington-O’Malley, Chelsea Kelly, Gabi Slingers, Haseena Solwa
The exceptional successes achieved in 2010 were always going to be “a hard act to follow,” but 2011 remained a very successful year: We maintained our participation in a variety of debating activities: warm-up friendly debates, the Rotary Debating League (Senior and Junior teams), the National Girls Schools’ Festival, the UN Debate, the Science Debate, the SACEE Forum Discussion Competition and the WP Championships.
Success at the Eurasian Schools Debating Championships
Two of our Senior Debaters, Angeliki Carvounes and Cara MazettiClaassen, took RGHS debating to new heights: the international arena. They both excelled in this year’s prestigious Eurasian School’s Debating Championships, in Turkey. In a competition which featured national teams from over fifty countries, their team won all six of the qualifying rounds, defeated Germany in the quarter-finals, but lost to the eventual winners, Greece, in the semi-finals. Apart from finishing third in the tournament, Cara was adjudged the 9th Best Speaker, while Angeliki was ranked the tournament’s Best Speaker.
Rotary League Debating
We entered both the junior and the senior competitions and had a number of enthusiastic junior debaters. Several of them were in Grade 8 and still needed to gain experience in this field. The team was represented by: Michaela McHugh, Orissa Ramesar, Katherine Harris, Aaliyah Vayesh. Although they only won one of their debates, they were narrowly defeated in most of the others. However, they acquired useful skills for next year’s competitions. The seniors were represented by Angeliki Carvounes, Cara Mazetti-Claassen, Azraa Bux, Nicola Cilliers, Saaeda Bassardien, Haseena Solwa and Nina Lawrenson. They were undefeated and won all four debates (Angeliki was voted Best Speaker for all four debates) in their group section and broke into the quarter-finals against Bishops. Angeliki Carvounes (adjudged Best Speaker), Cara Mazetti-Claassen and Azraa Bux successfully proposed that: “This house rejects the election of Julius Malema as ANCYL President.” In a tightly contested semi-final, the seniors’ run of success was halted by Westerford, who went on to win.
National Girls Schools’ Festival
The 2011 team comprised a mixture of experience, Angeliki Carvounes and Cara Mazetti-Claassen, and developing talent, Nicola Cilliers, Rebecca Furlong and Katherine Harris. We reached the final for the fourth time in a row but Pretoria Girls’ High School’s argument that: “This house believes that monarchies are outdated” was judged to be more convincing. Cara Mazetti-Claassen and Angeliki Carvounes both ranked in the top ten debaters of the tournament.
SACEE Forum Discussion Competition
This year’s team came very close to emulating the success of last year’s team when they came second to Herschel in the finals. Nikki Cathcart, Jenny Hughes (her third and final year in the team), Chelsea Kelly, Chloe Kruger and Nabeelah Shaboodien spoke very well on the topic: “The idea that any one part of the world belongs to certain people is false and dangerous.” Congratulations goes to Chloe Kruger who won the prize for being the Best Chairperson of the evening. We also received a prize of R1 200 for our school library for winning the first round of the competition.
Western Province Championships
The new senior team: Saeeda Bassardien, Azraa Bux, Robyn Fester, Sonia Mataramvura and Katherine Harris performed with determination and skill and won three of their six debates at the WP Provincial Championships. Robyn Fester, closely followed by Azraa Bux, were our Best Speakers at the competition. They all gained very valuable experience.
Science Debate
Under the guidance of Ms Pretorius and Mr Laufs, Rustenburg debuted in SAASTA’s e-Science Debating competition. Tuscany Botha, Saeeda Bassardien, Danielle Louw and Nabeelah Shaboodien’s produced convincing arguments on the following topics: “South Africa should have a national DNA data base to combat crime” and “Nanotechnology, smaller is better, and is essential for our future development.” They did us proud by achieving second spot. United Nations Debate at the Western Cape Legislative Chamber Chloe Kruger and Magenta Graziani, with Ms Pretorius at the helm, linked up with learners from our partner school, Oaklands Secondary, to form the Russian delegation that prepared, drafted and tabled the resolution: “The United Nations should control the security of the Internet”. Although they were not placed in the top three, they gained valuable experience and found the interaction with other 30 schools enriching.
Rustenburg Debaters excel in Turkey
Earlier this month a team of Western Province debaters took part in the prestigious Eurasian Schools Debating Championships held in Istanbul, Turkey. The team, represented by Angeliki Carvounes and Cara Mazetti Claassen from Rustenburg High School for Girls, Colin Bessaans from Westorford High School and Robert Grant and Ihsaan Bassier from Rondebosch Boys’ High School, was accompanied by UCT coaches Alex de Jager and Thomas Mclennan. The many hours of training and hard work preceding the tournament paid off because they performed phenomenally well to be the only undefeated team after six rounds in a competition, which included national teams from over fifty countries. They broke in second place behind Singapore and went on to win their quarter-final against Germany. The team lost to Greece in the semi-finals and placed third overall behind first placed Singapore and Greece (second). This was an exceptional achievement for a provincial team. In addition to this outstanding team performance, the speakers excelled individually earning praise and acknowledgement for the high standard of debating in South Africa. With more than 250 speakers in the competition, it was an exceptional achievement that all five WP speakers were ranked amongst the top 15 speakers of the Championships. Robert Grant ranked 15th, Ihsaan Bassier 14th, Cara Mazetti Claassen 9th and Colin Bessaans 8th . Angeliki Carvounes was ranked the best speaker in Eurasia. The speakers and their coaches deserve to feel proud of this outstanding achievement. All Rustybugs are exceptionally proud of Cara and Angeliki’s achievements. They have taken the high level of debating at Rustenburg High School into the international arena.
RGHS 2011
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