WSDC 2013 – Team England

Once again coached by Lewis Iwu, Team England returns to WSDC 2013 with yet another four-piece team. They are:

• Will Cook (Dulwich College)
• Lucy McCann (TWGGS)
• Barnaby Raine (Westminster)
• Ryan Tang (Harrow)

One of the more rare cases in recent WSDC history with now returning members, it is telling however that all four members of Team England 2012 are now at Oxbridge (mostly Oxford).

WSDC 2012 – SF Results and Grand Final Match-up

Quarterfinal Results
Motion: THS a 100% tax on inhereted wealth {Impromptu}
SF1: Philippines (Proposition – 8) vs. Scotland (Opposition – 5) ~~~ 6-1 Scotland (Opposition) @Kristenbosch Botanical Gardens
== Judging Panel: Steph Dick (C), Kristen Price, Josh Park, Chris Sanchez, Mehvesh Ahmed, Rocio Abril, Dan de Kadt
SF2: England (Proposition – 6) vs. Wales (Opposition – 7) ~~~ 6-1 Team (Opposition) @Kelvin Grove Country Club
== Judging Panel: Seham Areff (C), Chris Bishop, Taimur Bandey, Tracey Lee, Chris Hibbard, Iqbal Hafiedz, Eirianna Kouri
== England: Ben, Sam, Natasha, Ben
== Wales: Amy, David, Piers/Helen, David

Grand Final Match-up
Scotland (5) vs. Wales (7)

Team Scotland will make their 5th Grand Final apperance after 1998 (Runners-up), 1999 (Champions), 2001 (Runners-up) and 2007 (Champions). Scotland were semifinalists in 2010 after breaking 9th and defeating Wales and England in the knock-out rounds.
Team Wales will make history in their first ever Grand Final apperance. Their previous highest ranking came in 2010 where the team (James, David, Sarah, Josephine and Wonga) made it to the semifinals before loosing to England.

Grand Final Match-up by Total Speaker Points Ranking

Scotland (6) vs. Wales (9)

Massive thanks to Sayeqa Islam and Paidamwoyo Mangondo for live-tweeting SF2 and SF1 respectively.

Top Posts of the Year 2011

2011 is coming to a close, and PaulLau.com has grown another year older, 27 months and counting. There have been over 88,700 views since this blog began in October 2009, and over 550 posts (recall just 12 months ago, that number stood at a little over 180) which means that the “Posting at least once every week in 2011” commitment became more of a ‘Posting once a day’. It’s been an amazing year in terms of the blog, nearly 66,000 views just this year. So here’s a look back at the top posts of 2011.

1. WSDC 2011 – Team Lists [1st all time]
Part of the WSDC 2011 series, the posts resided in sidebar of PaulLau.com for over 8 months in the run-up to WSDC 2011 in Dundee, listing the team members attending WSDC 2011, at least those I could find.

2. Fire at UWC Atlantic College [2nd all time]
Other than debating, this was undoubtedly the second biggest story of the blog this year. I started this post 2 hours after the incident itself and continued updating it as a running summary of the situation.

3. TOK Essay – May 2012 [3rd all time]
Let’s just say this has not been the highlight of my Christmas holiday.

4. Fire at UWC Atlantic College – Photo Set 1 [4th all time]
The first images of the aftermath of the fire. Incidentally, April 14th was the busiest day on the blog with just under 1,300 views in just 24 hours.

5. [RESULTS] LSE Open 2011 [Tab]
A tournament I attended with David as my debating partner, joined by other Team Wales member Cat and Sarah. An amazing experience and my first peek into university level debating. You can read about what happened in my de-facto diary entry 1, 2 and see how Team Wales fared.

6. WSDC 2011 – Official World Rankings
Also part of the WSDC 2011 series, the official world rankings followed my earlier, and rather more controversial, post with my own calculations (which were quite accurate, even if I say so myself)

7. AC IB Results 2011
A good year for AC and some good results all together for my dear second years. Sadly, that puts the bar quite high for the UWC AC class of 2012.

8. [RESULTS] WSDC 2011 – Round-up
The ultimate summary of my final high-school tournament – WSDC 2011 – before I left the high-school debating scene. An amazing tournament and some unforgettable memories. Thank you to everyone.

9. Fire @UWC Atlantic College – Photo Set 2
The second set of photos regarding the Sunley fire, this time with my own photos.

10. SCMP – Profile: Chris Lee (IS) IGCSE Top of the World
A not so original post, but an article that did catch my eye, and clearly attracted quite a bit of attention too.

Honorary Mentions

I think it is worth noting at this point that although only 3 WSDC 2011 related posts were found in the top 10, and only 4 debating related posts, the next 10 posts are exclusively debating related, 8 of which are WSDC 2011 related as well. August 2011 was also the most popular month for PaulLau.com with nearly 14,000 views. A final thought: isn’t it interesting that Team Singapore, Team Canada and Team England come in as top posts on their own?

11. WSDC 2011 – Team Singapore
12. WSDC 2011 – Media Guide [UPDATED]
13. WSDC 2012 – Prepared Motions [UPDATED]
14. [RESULTS] WSDC 2011 – Round 1 & 2
15. WSDC 2011 – Team Canada
16. [RESULTS] WSDC 2011 – Break, Round 7 & 8
17. WSDC 2011 – Team England
18. [RESULTS] WSDC 2011 – Round 5 & 6
19. ASDC 2011 – Participating Institutions
20. WIDPSC 2011 – Grand Final [RESULTS] + Analysis

WSDC 2012 – Team England

The ESU Team England for WSDC 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa will consist of:

• Akshay Karia {Returning Member of WSDC 2011}
• Ben Goldstein
• Sam Collier
• Natasha Rachman

Team England will be coached by former Team England member and coach of UAE for WSDC 2011, Lewis Iwu. Attending WSDC 2005, Lewis Iwu ranked joint 2nd on the individual speakers tab. Lewis also attended WSDC 2004.

Source:
http://lists.topica.com/lists/schoolsdebate/read/message.html?mid=914984666&sort=d&start=578
and
http://esu.org/page.asp?p=6702

WSDC 2012 – Team England Trials

Dear all,

Applications for the 2012 England Schools Debate Team have opened. The 2012 team will represent England at the World Schools Debating Championships in South Africa in January.

Trials for the England team will take place on the weekend of 1-2 October in London.

For more information about the trials process and to complete the online application, please go to
http://www.esu.org/wsdc/england/
.

Nick Pacheco

WSDC 2012 – Team England Coach

It has been announced through the UK’s Schools Debate emailing list that Lewis Iwu, coach of Team UAE at WSDC 2011, has been appointed as coach of Team England for WSDC 2012. Congradulations

I am pleased to announce that we have appointed Lewis Iwu as ESU Team England Coach 2012 for South Africa WSDC.

Tim SavinChair,
ESU Committee WSDC

WSDC 2011 – Team England

This is part of the WSDC 2011 series as I recount and report on the World School Debating Championship 2011 in Dundee, Scotland as a debater, blogger and Wales national team member.

Following both a pre-trials tournament and a trials weekend, Team England for the 2011 WSDC has emerged. Team England hold an impressive WSDC record, thrice winning the Championship, coming in runner-ups on six occasions and have progressed into at least the quarter-finals at ever world championships since 1988.

For WSDC 2011, Team England will be

• Matthew Handley (St Francis Xavier, Liverpool) {Returning Member}
• Greg Farquhar (Grammar School at Leeds) {Returning Member}
• Alice Coombes-Huntley (Parrs Wood, Manchester)
• Akshay Kishan Karia (The Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School, London)

Team England will be coached by Nick Pacheco, WSDC Team England coach in 2010.

Source:
http://esu.org/page.asp?p=6773
and
http://esu.org/page.asp?p=6702