Frequently Asked Questions

The Executive facilitates the Competition, organises registration, provides training to adjudicators, creates the draw and topics, and coordinates with the host school. The Executive provides general training resources, such as the Handbook, as well as training days over the course of the year, focused on new debaters. 

The Teacher-In-Charge of debating at their school facilitates their school's teams, facilitates permission and communicates with parents regarding venue and debating times, and is responsible for their school's involvement in the competition. A coach coordinates their specific team and communicates with parents where necessary, and organises team-specific training. TICs can also be coaches.

The responsibility of learning to debate is with the TIC and coaches at their school. The Executive can provide resources and training days, but the responsibility of ensuring students are familiar with debating is the responsibility of individual schools.

The competition runs for four weeks in Term 3 and three weeks in Term 4, with an additionally play-off/catch-up round in Term 3 as required.

The competition is hosted by a school on the Coast. In 2026 the host venue is Sunshine Coast Grammar School.

Teams are registered by the TIC who sends in the registration form from the website to admin@scsdebating.com.au, before the registration due date.

Schools can register as many teams as they want, providing the host school can accommodate the teams. 

Importantly, for every two teams a school registers, they must provide one adjudicator who can adjudicate every division, every round.

If a school cannot meet this requirement, they will be restricted in the number of teams they can enter.

There are a number of factors that impact the result of a debate. The most important one, however, is how well the team has engaged with the key issues of the debate.

This includes having well-reasoned arguments and rebutting the arguments raised by the opposition.

While clear structure and persuasiveness in the debate are very important to the communication and clarity of a team's arguments, it is the reasoning behind the arguments and rebuttal that win a debate.

Junior Division: 3-4 minutes

Intermediate Division: 5-7 minutes

Senior Division: 6-8 minutes

It is not a problem if a debater does not meet these times and there is no penalty for speaking under the timeframe - the focus is on giving debaters enough time to argue their points without restricting them by time.

Our 'Resources' page on the website contains many resources and videos to help coaches train their debaters. QDU YouTube is a great place to start as well!

No - once a student is part of a team, they must only debate with that team for the duration of the competition.

You can ask a student who is not part of a team to sub in! The student must be of the correct year level e.g. Year 6-7 for junior, Year 8-9 for intermediate, or Year 10-12 for senior.

E.g. if a senior team of Year 10 students is down one member for a debate, another student from either Year 10, 11 or 12 can sub in for that debate (provided they are not already a member of a team in the competition).

Not a problem - the opposing team's fourth speaker can do both jobs, or a coach/parent/member of the audience can sub in for that role.

Information sheets are documents and/or links about the topic of the debate. They are designed to give team's a 'base line' for the debate - devices are not permitted in prep rooms, so the information sheets are a way of ensuring all students have an understanding of the topic so they can engage with the issues. They are not designed to help students 'guess the topic' though.

Information sheets will be sent out by the SCS Exec and also uploaded to the website. Information sheets are released 2-5 days before the round.

Adjudicators are made up of volunteers who want to support their schools and debating on the Coast. Adjudicators can be teachers, parents, coaches and/or students over the age of 15. 

Adjudicators are given face-to-face training by the SCS Executive in the weeks leading up to the Competition. Training is provided every year.

Adjudicators make their decision based on which team provided the most reasoned arguments, and who successfully proved their side of the debate based on the issues raised by both teams. Adjudicators consider both the substantive points made by each speaker, as well as rebuttal points. 

Adjudicators also reward structure and persuasive speaking as it pertains to the communication of well-reasoned arguments.

Adjudicators make decisions based on their own reasoning and through what they heard said throughout the debate. Almost all debates will have two adjudicators allocated so teams can be confident in their decisions.

If, however, you would like to make a complaint or request a review of a decision, please follow the procedure outlined in Section 10 of the Rules and Regulations. 

Please do not directly complain to adjudicators - complaints must be in writing and via email.

Feedback and complaints can be emailed at any time to admin@scsdebating.com.au. We welcome all feedback to make sure our competition remains academic and challenging, but also fun!