Junior WSD Invitation Letter

Dear Colleagues,

The Harvard Debate Council is delighted to announce a new initiative: the Harvard Debate Council International Tournaments, a series of online competitions to be held throughout the year. We hope to provide a series of competitions offered at times that will allow students around the globe (American students included) to compete against each other. All tournaments will take place on Friday and Saturday evenings in the Americas and on Saturday and Sunday mornings in Asia.

We are excited to invite you to the second tournament in the series, the Junior World Schools Debate Tournament, to be hosted online for elementary school students in China on December 17 & 18, 2022 (CST).

The tournament will be conducted online via VOOV/Tencent Meeting. We will use tabroom.com as the official tournament management and registration.

Additional expected tournaments include Junior Extemporaneous Debate earlier in December and Public Forum competitions to be hosted during the last weekend in January 2023 and the first weekend in February 2023. Details about future tournaments will be released at a future date.

Sincerely yours,

Tripp Rebrovick                                    &                     Sherry Hall

Coach of Debate, Harvard College                                 Director of Tournaments and Workshops

Director, Harvard Debate Council                                  Harvard Debate Council

大家好！

哈佛大学辩论委员会很高兴公布一个新计划：哈佛大学辩论委员会国际系列赛。我们希望提供一系列的赛事，能够让世界各地的学生在这个舞台上相互竞争、交流。所有系列赛事都将在美国时间的周五和周六晚上（亚洲时间的周六和周日上午）在线进行。加油！

祝好，

任博全

哈佛大学辩论委员会主管/主教练

Tournament Details

The tournament will offer one division of Junior Worlds Schools Debate for students in the 4^th-6^th grades. All teams must be composed of exactly three students. There will be an initial cap of 150 entries, after which entries will be placed on a waitlist and entered when enough judging has been secured.

There will be four preliminary rounds, each with two flights. If there are 32 or fewer teams with a 3-1 or better record, we will clear all of them to a partial double-octafinals. If there are more than 32 teams with a 3-1 record, the top 32 teams will clear to a full double-octafinals. 

Motions for the preliminary rounds will be released four weeks before the tournament begins. Motions for elimination rounds will be released 15 minutes before the round starts, although the topic areas for the elimination rounds will be released along with the preliminary round topics.

All judging will be provided by the tournament.

Entry Procedures

You must enter via tabroom.com. The web site will begin accepting your entries on October 1, 2022. All entries will initially be placd on a waitlist. Once your entry is accepted and payment is processed, entries will be taken off of the waitlist.

Payment Procedures

We request that you pay your fees by credit card. You may obtain an invoice by downloading it from the web site. If you cannot pay by credit card, please contact us and we will work out an alternative arrangement.

Once your entry is complete, please fill out the credit card payment request form on the right side column at tabroom site or at this link:  Credit Card Payment Form. We will email you a link to pay using our online portal at the email address you have provided. Please allow 24-48 hours for processing after you submit the payment request form.

Tournament Format

The tournament will use the following format for Junior Worlds Schools Debate:

Tentative Tournament Schedule

Online Technology Policies

Recording: For the privacy and protection of students and other participants, any recording of speeches is prohibited, with the exception that students are permitted to record their own speeches. 

Observers: Unaffiliated observers are not permitted. Only registered students, coaches, and parents of registered students may observe. 

Alternative Platforms:  For the safety of all participants, no one (judge, coach, student) may switch their rounds to an alternative video platform outside of the tournament hosted VOOV rooms.

Judge Video: The tournament believes that competitors deserve to be able to see their judges as much as possible. Accordingly, to the maximum extent possible, the cameras of competitors and judges should be on (and on them) while a student is speaking and during RFDs. Brief pauses are understandable. To the extent needed, cameras can be off to enhance streaming quality.