Junior School students canoeing during a school trip.

York School News

York Students Quality for National Debate Tournament

4/4/2017

This year has brought some incredible results for York School debaters.

At the recent Junior Provincials Debate Championships at St. Michael's College School, students debated in five rounds with the prepared motion being: "This House Believes that Post-Secondary Tuition Should be free in Canada." Other impromptu motions ranged from eliminating zoos to whether news outlets should be fined for publishing false or misleading news.

Our team of Grade 9 students Marc Rouhana and Jack Evanowich placed 13th overall in Ontario. As a speaker, Jack also placed 11th overall. Our Grade 7 team of Elliott Friedland and Jamie Rygiel-Baban, finished 24th overall and was the highest ranked Grade 7 team in the competition.

A few days later, four intrepid York School public speakers travelled to Villanova College for the Junior Qualifier for the National Public Speaking Championships. In individual events, Ryan Cho placed 2nd for Impromptu Speech, 6th in Persuasive Speaking for his speech on the extinction of helium, and 2nd for his interpretive reading of two poems by Roald Dahl. Ben Singer placed 10th in Impromptu Speech and 1st in Persuasive Speaking for his speech on high school education of indigenous youth in Ontario. Grade 9 student, Mia Feldman, placed 4th in Persuasive Speaking for her speech on the decriminalization of domestic violence in Russia. Jamie Rygiel-Baban placed 8th in Impromptu speaking and 9th for his interpretation of the Stephen Leacock story My Financial Career.

Based on these stellar results, three of our students have qualified for the national tournament and will be representing The York School in Vancouver in May. Congratulations to Ryan Cho (1st overall), Ben Singer (5th overall) and Mia Feldman (6th overall), and our kudos to Jamie Rygiel-Baban in Grade 7 who finished 11th overall, competing almost exclusively against students in Grade 9.

Congratulations to all our York School debaters and best of luck at Nationals!

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About the York School

The York School is a gender-inclusive JK to Grade 12 independent school located in the heart of Toronto. The York School was founded in 1965 and is the first English speaking school in Canada accredited to offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) from junior kindergarten (JK) to university entrance. As an IB World School, The York School's motto is Experience Teaches.