South Australian Debating Association

Infobox Company
company_name = South Australian Debating Association
company_
company_type = Non Profit Organization
foundation = 1967
location = Adelaide, South Australia
key_people = "President"
Ms Genevieve Lewis

"Vice-President"
Ms Anna Baulderstone

"Secretary"
Ms Hannah Canham

"Treasurer"
Mr Mark Hosking

"Schools Chief Administrator"
Ms Megan Comerford
industry =
products =
revenue =
operating_income =
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parent = Australian Debating Federation
homepage = [http://www.sada.org.au/ www.sada.org.au]
footnotes =

The South Australian Debating Association (SADA) is a not-for-profit organisation established in 1967 which operates across the state of South Australia to provide debating for school and university students. The SADA is mainly co-ordinated by university students and young graduates, most of whom have debated, coached and/or adjudicated at national and international levels. The Association runs the state's premier [Refer to www.adf.asn.au] Schools' Competition, and supervises the co-ordination of the Adelaide University Debating Society (AUDS). The SADA is South Australia's largest, longest running, and most recognised debating association [Refer to www.sada.org.au] .

In 2009, the SADA will host the 2009 National Schools' Debating Championships in Adelaide, with tournament debates to be held at member schools across the state.

Schools' Competition

The SADA has been running the state's premier School's Competition since its foundation in 1967, and currently involves around 180 teams from public and private schools around metropolitan Adelaide. The competition is held in five rounds for years 7-10, and four rounds Senior B- and A-Grade; finals are also held in each level for the top-ranked teams.

Debates are held in the evening in classrooms at member schools, with up to ten debates occurring simultaneously in the venue at any given time. Chairpersons are typically provided by affirmative teams, while negative teams are expected to provide a timekeeper.

The SADA is also affiliated with the Junior School Heads' Association of Australia, and thus co-ordinates a Junior-level competition for years 4-6 on their behalf.

Adjudicators

All SADA adjudicators must pass a thorough accreditation process, including a lecture from the SADA’s Vice President, a written exam, and a peer-reviewed adjudication when starting out. To ensure consistency of understanding of debating principles across all of SADA's adjudicators, all training is conducted in accordance with the standards followed by the Australian Debating Federation, as set out in the Australia-Asia Debating Handbook. 'Refresher' courses are also offered at the start of each year.

To ensure integrity, experience, and sound understanding in the adjudicator pool, students are not eligible to adjudicate in the SADA Schools Competition, although Year 12 students are encouraged to sign up for training upon leaving school. Adjudicators are not permitted to adjudicate debates involving their past schools until they are at least five years out of school.

National Involvement and State Team

The SADA is South Australia's sole affiliate to the Australian Debating Federation, and is thus responsible for selecting a team to represent South Australia at the annual Australian National Schools Debating Championships (NSDC), where the SADA has enjoyed substantial success.

Selection of the South Australian State Team occurs in conjunction with Senior Debating Workshops held over a series of Sundays at the beginning of each year. The sessions are open to debaters from any school in South Australia (even those not from SADA member schools), and are particularly aimed at students in Years 10-12. The State Team consists of four team members and two reserves, who typically train together for 3-4 months before competing at the NSDC. The most recent State Team (2007) placed third overall in Australia, reaching the preliminary final of the tournament.

The Association also sends teams to the Australian Intervarsity Debating Championships and related tournaments through its management of AUDS.

Education

As part of its founding aims, the SADA committed to fostering excellence in South Australian debating, and thus runs an extensive Debating Education Program [Refer to 'Education' at www.sada.org.au] for debaters and coaches alike. The annual education programme includes:

New Debaters' Evening

The New Debaters' Evening aims to teach the fundamentals of case preparation and debating principles to all new debaters, regardless of year level. The session typically consists of a demonstration debate, and an interactive tutorial lecture.

Points of Information Demonstration Debate

Held between Senior Adjudicators and Executive members, the annual Points of Information Demonstration Debate aims to teach Senior A-Grade students the purpose and accepted usage of Points of Information in Senior competition.

Coach the Coaches

Because the SADA recognises that most schools rely on senior students and teachers to coach teams, many of whom have little or no proper debating experience, the Association offers educational sessions to the coaches on how to help students construct cases, what they need to focus their students on, and general information on how the competition runs. While these sessions are held annually, they are also available on request by individual schools.

Senior Debating Workshops

These workshops are designed to help further the skills of Year 10, A-Grade and B-Grade debaters, who have fully grasped basic debating concepts, and are ready to tackle new techniques and intricacies. These workshops usually take the form of a lecture on a particular aspect of senior-level debating (such as Points of Information, secret topics, models, etc) from the Association's most senior debaters and adjudicators, followed by an opportunity to practice their new-found skills in a secret topic debate and receive individual feedback from the trainers. These workshops are also open to students who are not from SADA member schools.

Related Pages

*Australian Debating Federation
*Australian National Schools Debating Championships

References

External links

* [http://www.sada.org.au/ South Australian Debating Association website]