The HK Regional round of the Oxford Schools, with two rounds of debate between 24 teams, was successfully held last night, February 27th.
After careful deliberation by our incredible judges, we are excited to announce the three teams going through to the final rounds of the Oxford Schools debating tournament. In no particular order, they are:
HKIS A – Dhruv Leekha and Chloe Tse
DBS A – Chan Daniel Lian and Li Chun Huen
STC C – Nicole Wong and Krissy Yip
We extend our warmest congratulations to the teams, and thank everyone who judged and helped organize the HK regional rounds this year for their amazing work.
The following is a slightly modified version of a letter sent to debaters across Hong Kong on the 27th of January, 2021. The original document has been attached to this post for reference.
Dear Debating Community of Hong Kong,
We are excited to announce that the HK regional rounds for the prestigious Oxford Schools tournament, hosted by the Oxford Debating Union, will be held on Saturday the 27th of February from 5 to 10pm. As a limited number of teams are sent each year from Hong Kong, these trials will be highly competitive.
Unlike in previous years, this year’s rendition of Oxford Schools will take place online. Fortunately, this means that participants will not be required to self-fund the trip to Oxford that would be necessary otherwise. However, please note the team chosen will still need to pay the tournament fee of £40 per team independently. As this is a schools-based tournament, team members must be from the same secondary school.
This year, the selections process will be held online. The trials will be judged by members of the Hong Kong debating circuit as well as members of the Oxford Union. Verdicts will not be given, although extensive feedback will be provided by adjudicators to participants. The format will be BP with 5-minute speeches, and results will be announced on the 28th of February.
In the event you are chosen to compete at Oxford Schools, you will not be allowed to change partners under any circumstances. Withdrawal will result in the next team on the tab being invited to represent Hong Kong instead. Although no team is guaranteed participation in the trials, we will prioritize so that each school will be able to have at least one team participate.
The following is a slightly modified version of a letter sent to secondary schools across Hong Kong on the 27th of January, 2021. The original document has been attached to this post for reference.
Dear Debating Community of Hong Kong,
As part of our role in supporting secondary school debate in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Debate & Speech Community (HKDSC) will now be responsible for organizing the Junior and Senior SDC debate tournaments, which will continue to take place annually and be held exclusively for Hong Kong secondary students.
We are therefore delighted to announce that the inaugural Junior SDC under the HKDSC will take place online on the 10th & 11th of April, and will be convened by Mr. Stan Dyer and Angus Li. As in previous JSDCs, the tournament this year will be exclusively for students in Form 1-3/Year 7-10/Grade 6-9.
The format used will be a variant of WSDC – debates will be 3-on-3 with 6 minute speeches and 3 minute reply speeches. POIs are allowed and encouraged. Teams with more than 6 debaters will not be eligible to break, and debaters will have to speak for at least 3 rounds to be eligible for speaker awards. Physical trophies will be given to the Top 10 Speakers, as well as the Champion and Runner-Up teams in the Grand Final.
The total registration fee for each team will be $200. Payment details will be given after registration ends. HKDSC is a non-profit organization, and so this money will be used to make our operations sustainable and ensure the quality of the events we hold.
Additionally, in order to maintain a high standard of judging, we will require that schools provide 1 adjudicator per team. These can be either teachers or senior students, but at least 1 of the adjudicators provided must be an adult who can monitor the security of their school’s participants.
The deadline for registration through our form (forms.gle/Zc5ybbCRu6t9zyEJ6) is 28 February. The tournament schedule, as well as other details, can be found below:
Draw:
Awards
Round 1 random, Rounds 2-4 power-paired. QF-GF will be folded using a knockout draw.
Top Ten Speaker Awards; Top 8 teams break to quarter-final.
We are incredibly excited to keep the banner of SDC flying high, and hope to see as many debaters as possible in April. Thank you for your time!
