6th Class has been the best school year for me. At the start of the year, I was picked to be on the squad for the debating team. I was really excited that I got onto the squad, because I didn't think it was something that I would be good at.

We did a practice debate between the six of us on the squad (three on each team). At first, I was terrible at presentation, but with Mr. McEvoy's advice I soon began to get better at presenting. One day it just "clicked" and I was made captain for the practice debate.

The motion was "Homework is a Waste of Time" and my team were proposing it, which was easy, because it's one of those few motions that I actually agree with.

Then our first debate came around and, to my surprise, I was picked to be captain! The motion was the same as the practice, which meant I could keep the same speech, but I also had to write a captain's speech, summing everything up.

There were six of us on the squad: Tom Dooley, Joseph Downey, Tom O'Connor, Eric Kilmartin, Luke Holmes and myself. The team for the first debate was me as captain, Tom Dooley and Luke Holmes, this would be the squad for the rest of the league. We were against CBC Monkstown Park. We won by 3 points. It was exhilirating.

The next debate was trickier. It was against the school that was mentored by the founder of the competition. The motion was "Climate Change is not My Problem" against Our Lady's Grove, Goatstown. We won by 3 points that time.

Our third debate was by far my favourite. It was held in Hollypark, and my entire class was there. So were about half the teaching staff! The motion was "iPads Should Replace Schoolbooks" and we got to read our speeches off iPads! After the adjudicators announced that we were the winners, I will never forget the moment that my entire class stood up and cheered like there was no tomorrow, along with the teachers present. That moment has probably been the best moment of my life.

Then all the teachers came up to us and congratulated us and as we got up to yard, we were greeted by the mob of pupils from 4th and 6th Class congratulating us.

The two last debates we did were "Beauty Pageants Help Children with their Self-Esteem" against St. Colmcille's and "Religion Shouldn't be Taught in Schools" against St. Joseph's.

The latter was the Dublin and Wicklow championship final but, sadly, we narrowly lost.

After that, we decided to start our own debating league in school. That is currently going on now.

A week after debating finished, I was picked for the school quiz team. We weren't expecting to get through to the next round, because it was a different competition than what we had done in the past, but both Hollypark teams won! Unfortunately, the Senior team lost the second round, but the Juniors got through to the All-Ireland Final.

We were not to be outdone! The senior team entered the DLR World Book Day Quiz for the second year in a row and we won, for the second time!

We're also heading to the St. Attracta's Maths Quiz in the future.

6th Class could not have been the same without the help of Mr. McEvoy and Ms. Hennesy (debating), Ms. Brennan and Ms. Smith (quiz) and, of course, Mr. O'Donovan, my 6th Class teacher.