YORK Castle High walked away with the champion’s trophy and $300,000 as winner of the 2014-2015 season of Burger King’s National Secondary Schools’ Debating Competition last Wednesday.

The team from St Ann, which opposed the moot: “This house believes payola is an appropriate tool for advancement in the music industry”, triumphed over parish neighbours St Mary High.

The competition attracted 64 schools from across the country engaged in six rounds of competition between January and April 2015.

Over $800,000 was awarded in cash and prizes to the top four teams, zone champions, top boys/girls/co-educational schools and the most improved school. Prizes were also awarded to the teachers from the champion and runner-up schools.

Shani Bennett, Jerome Greenland, Abigail Barrett, Odane Brooks and Kadijah Cox were inducted into the Speakers Gold Club for consistently earning top scores over the course of the competition. Cox also earned the award for the overall Best Debater of the competition.

“This year’s debating competition was a very exciting one, where the underdogs of the season arose to become semi-finalists and finalists; showing that in the arena of debate all is fair play,” said Sabrena McDonald Radcliffe, sales and marketing manager of Burger King and Popeye’s.

“Burger King is happy to have had the support of Jamaica Observer, NIA, TVJ, Coca Cola and IGL in reawakening the interest in the art of debating, and are looking forward to next year when we get more sponsors and schools involved in the mission to challenge the present and change the future through debate’.