Student expression builds confidence and trust. Debaters at Ringwood Secondary College span all year levels and present with assurance and the support of staff at the DAV competition. In Education Week there is the challenge to debate staff – often on a much lighter topic – and the skills of public speakers are an integral feature of student presentation at all levels.
Competition with local colleges is organised such through Rotary. Likewise nominated students represent the College in the Legacy Junior Public Speaking Competition and the Plain English Speaking Competition.
Such debates invite opinion and clarity of evidence coupled to skills of rhetoric. Would you like to debate “That Australia should abolish compulsory voting”, or “That environmental groups should commit violent acts in pursuit of their aims”?
We, the students at Ringwood Secondary College, acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional custodians of the land we are meeting on today.
We appreciate the waterways, mountains, skies, plants and animals from this land and thank our ancestors for their ceremonies of story-telling, music, dance and celebration.
We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging and promise to learn to live in a community that is part of the oldest living culture on Earth and move forwards together to a place of equity, justice and partnership.
We recognise that First Nations sovereignty was never ceded. This was and always will be Aboriginal Land.