The 2004 New Zealand Schools’ Debating Team competed at the 2005 Worlds Schools’ Debating Championships in Calgary, Canada. New Zealand won six of the eight rounds of the competition, enough to see them qualify for the Octo-finals in 8th position. They debated against USA in the Octo-finals, and lost a closely fought debate 2-1. That result left New Zealand ranked 9 of the 31 teams at the competition. In the individual rankings, all of the New Zealand team featured in the top 50, with Stephen Whittington the highest ranked at 8th. The Championships were won by Australia for the third time in a row, beating England, 5-0 in the final.
The members of the 2004 New Zealand Schools Team were:
Lewis Bollard
Chris Foulkes
Polly Higbee
Stephen Whittington
The coach was Sayeqa Islam, a Victoria University law student.
Full results are available on the Worlds website. Round by round results are under the ‘Blog’ section.