Highest Debating Accolade for Year 10 Student

Flora Du received a Swannie Award in Debating, the DAV’s highest accolade .

I am extremely pleased and proud to announce that Year 10 student, Flora Du (C Grade) has been awarded a Swannie Award for the Hawthorn region – the highest individual award a debater can receive by the Debaters’ Association of Victoria (DAV) and, therefore, extremely rare. In our region, only five “Swannies” were awarded for the 2021 Debating season.

The Swannie Awards are named after Alan Swanwick, a long-time member of the DAV and a pioneer of Debating in Victoria. “Swannies” are awarded to the speaker in each region and grade who has the highest average speaker score after completing at least three debates during the year. The average is calculated solely on speaker scores and is not affected by the Best Speaker Awards that are announced at the end of each debate.

Flora joins the elite company of two other St Catherine’s students who received “Swannies”: Susannah Guthrie (’09) in 2007, and Kate Clark (’14) in 2013, who has also been an Old Girl coach for Senior Debating.

Flora will be invited to attend an online ceremony in November to accept her award and she takes our good wishes with her. I am certain Flora and all the students mentioned here will continue to inspire others with their skills and achievements for many years to come.

Ms Mary-Anne Keratiotis,

Coordinator of Debating and Public Speaking

Up next