In November & December of 2022, we held our Debate Mate Winter World Series! 🌎

This is a global debate competition geared towards international school students, offering them a chance to show off their skills and debate against students from all over the world!

This incredible cohort of students representing schools from The Netherlands, Japan and Transylvania (just to name a few), came together and participated in 4 debates. These covered topics from Space Exploration, Universal Basic Income, Cyber Security, and Air Travel.

We are delighted to present the following passage from a member of the winning team, International Community School (ICS) in Amman, Jordan. Here, they discuss their feelings around winning, some challenges they faced, and some tips on how to be confident and succeed.

International Community School Jordan Team: (left to right) Yusur, Tanishka, Isabella, Leo, and Anita

We at ICS began our Debate Mate journey back in Spring. My team and I took part in the Spring Series 2022 and we came out victorious. We were so proud to have made it so far and won in our very first competitive debating experience. 

We competed against schools from around the world and learnt so much along the way that we decided it would be best to compete again in the Winter Series of 2022. Once again, we were victorious and were able to keep our title as world debating champions. At first it took time for us to adjust to the style of debating that Debate Mate requires but as time went on, we adapted quickly and effortlessly. Anita, Leo, Isabella, Yusur, and I have learnt so much from these two experiences and look forward to competing with Debate Mate again. 

My tips to any debaters looking for advice would be to remember to intonate your voice, link well with your teammates arguments, offer and accept many POIs, dismantle the other team's arguments through the use of several rebuttals at the beginning of your speech and, finally, to just have fun with it! We often find that as long as you’re comfortable with what you're saying, you will look and feel confident.

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By Tanishka Vasani, ICS Debater

We are looking forward to welcoming the ICS team in person this April in a show debate against the Debate Mate Grad School Team in London, a brilliant opportunity for them to showcase and develop their debating skills!

Stay tuned on our socials to hear more! 💬