Dear Coaches,

We hope this finds you well.

The draws sent out yesterday contained incorrect dates and the wrong league year. We have corrected these issues.
Please find the updated version in your inbox, which contains the correct dates and rounds. 
Please note that no venues or pairings were affected. Only the first two headlines in the document were incorrect.

Secondly, we received a motion clarification request regarding the Round 8 motion.
We were asked to confirm if the abbreviation THO stands for "This House opposes...".
We can confirm that this is correct. The full motion for Round 8 is: This House opposes the decline of religiosity in the west.

Kind regards,
Alex Seitz, Atharv Mahendrakar, Caroline Pottgiesser, Kavin Raj Kumar, Leander Mathissen, Sunny Lorenz

Dear coaches,
 
Please find attached the draws for rounds 1-4 of Senior League 2025/26. Should you need to drop out of any round, please let us know as soon as possible, as this ensures that we can fix allocations. This season we have no school that offered to host in Frankfurt, therefore some schools may face longer travel times.
 
The prepared motions for this season are:
Round 2: THBT the winners of the most prestigious arts awards (e.g. the Oscars) should always be decided by a public vote.
Round 4: THR the rise of rainbow capitalism.
Round 5: Once self-driving cars are fully developed and widely available, THW ban humans from driving.
Round 8: THO the decline of religiosity in the west.

All Emails will be published on our website through the following link: https://www.schoolsdebate.de/index.php/competitions/dsg-senior-league
 
We would also like to remind you of the online judges briefing that will take place on November 20th at 19:00 CEST.
 
Kind regards,
Alex Seitz, Atharv Mahendrakar, Caroline Pottgiesser, Kavin Raj Kumar, Leander Mathissen, Sunny Lorenz
 
Please use the following links in order to find the schedule and the pairings for each round. Please note: Venues will not be published on our website.

Schedule and Pairings Rounds 1/2

Schedule and Pairings Rounds 3/4

Motions Heidelberg Weekend Rounds 5-8

Hello everybody, 

We hope this finds you well. Two items of note:

  1. This is a reminder that registration for both leagues is open. Please make sure to register your school through the specific forms. Please register your school for each league individually.

    1. Senior League (SL) open until October 11th (which is in five days!): https://forms.gle/An3Y93vYuRMbwrUc7

    2. Junior League (JL) open until November 9th: https://forms.gle/zeXTaAgiNxKJB7eT7

  2. A few things about invoices… We have noticed that some schools have specific requirements regarding invoices. This is caused by the different (legal) structure some schools might have. In order to avoid misunderstandings and long waits for corrected invoices, we ask you to check and inform us about the following things.

    1. Please make sure to submit a contact person that is responsible for invoice processing. Please do so if, and only if, this is not you. We will reach out to you after the registration closes if we need any further details.

    2. Please let us know about any specific wordings you might need (such as: Teilnahmegebühr Heidelberg, includes 5 meals, 2 nights, etc.). Please check your charter before submitting any registrations. We will provide a section in the different registrations which is designated for these requirements. Please note that if your organisation’s charter presents specific requirements to our invoices, we need to know this information as detailed as possible.

    3. Please make sure to check any invoices within two business days. Please reach out to us, in that time frame, if you need anything changed. We cannot guarantee any further changes to your invoice, if you voice concerns afterwards. 

If you need to adjust the information you provided in our registration form, simply reach out to us by writing an email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for Senior League or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for Junior League. 

We are looking forward to seeing many of you during this new season of Senior League as well as Junior League. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Yours sincerely,

Sunny Marko Lorenz Salah El Kaleh
Caroline Pottgießer Kiara Schembs
Leander Mathissen Robert Foglszinger
Alex Seitz Franziska Mohr
Atharv Mahendrakar  
Kavin Raj Kumar  
The SL 2025/2026 OrgCom The JL 2025/2026 OrgCom
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Dear members of the debating community,
 
We are happy to announce that registration is now open for the 2025/26 season of DSG Senior League (SL). The tournament is open to teams from all German secondary schools.
 
The debates of SL 2025/26 will take place on the following days:
  • FRI, 28 NOVEMBER 2025 (Rounds 1 & 2)
  • FRI, 30 JANUARY 2026 (Rounds 3 & 4)
  • FRI-SUN, 20-22 MARCH 2026 (Heidelberg Weekend, Rounds 5-8 + Octofinals)
  • SAT, 13 JUNE 2026 (Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Grand Final)

The virtual judges' briefing for both Junior and Senior League will be held via MS Teams on THU, 20 NOVEMBER 2025, at 7pm.

Please register through the form below, which contains all necessary information about the tournament. Registration is open until 11 October. Late registrations will only be accepted in special circumstances.
 
>> Registration form: https://forms.gle/An3Y93vYuRMbwrUc7 <<
 
As we discussed at the SL annual meeting earlier this year, our tournament has grown so large that the Würzburg youth hostel no longer has the capacity to host our debate weekend. Even though we have thoroughly enjoyed our many previous stays there, and are extremely grateful to them for their wonderful hospitality and support over the years, we have now had to find a different venue. We are happy to announce that this season's debate weekend will take place at the DJH Youth Hostel in Heidelberg. More information about the weekend will follow soon.
 
We are looking forward to seeing many of you during this new season of Senior League. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Sunny Lorenz
Caroline Pottgiesser
Leander Mathissen 
Alex Seitz 
Atharv Mahendrakar
Kavin Raj Kumar
 
The SL 2025/26 Organisation Committee (OrgCom)

We congratulate DSG Team Germany for its excellent performance at this year's World Schools Debating Championships in Panama City, Panama (22 JUL - 01 AUG 2025)! Out of 57 teams attending, Germany was just two ballots away from breaking into the top tier of 24 teams after the preliminary rounds and ended up on rank 31! This is on the one hand an outstanding achievement, considering the small size of the German schools debate circuit, on the other hand frustrating, that the break into the final rounds was missed by just a whim. 

Either way, we would like to appreciate the tremendous efforts invested by all involved:

The debaters: Yuye Qian (Stuttgart), Kiara Schembs (Frankfurt), Zarant Horváth (Neuss), Alexandra Rubinstein (Schwäbisch Gmünd), Felix Polianski (Ulm)

Coach: Samuel Scheuer

Not in image: Coach and Judge Gaby Lin

Not in image: Independent judge from Germany: Tarun Ruschmeier

Important side note: Tarun Ruschmeier was the fourth DSG member to judge a WSDC Grand Final. Congratulations!!! He succeeded Christopher Sanchez (2012), Jana Gilke (2017) and Louisa Broeg (2019).

The tournament was won by Team India on a 7-0 unanimous decision. Congratulations!!

Teams faced:

Rd1 Chile (win)
Rd2 Indonesia (loss)
Rd3 Mexico (loss)
Rd4 Denmark (loss)
Rd5 Turkey (win)
Rd6 Slovakia (win)
Rd7 Estonia (win)
Rd8 Australia (loss)

More WSDC 2025 information here

All WSDC 2025 motions

All WSDC 2025 results by rounds

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