Whakatane High School is the winner of the Colin McGregor Shield, awarded to the best performing school at the Bay of Plenty Model United Nations event.

The Model United Nations is an annual event held provincially and then on a national level in which school teams debate global issues using UN protocol.

Russia and Palau engage in debate: Aparma Nair, Dwayne McMenamin and Stefan Murison from Trident High School.

The Bay of Plenty event was held at the weekend and saw over 60 students from across the region participate.

Each school team adopted a country for the event and spoke in the debate as if they were representing that country.

An issue debated was the promotion of democracy and Whakatane High School, representing Algeria, objected to the dictatorial way in which democracy was being imposed on them.

Tauranga MP Simon Bridges awards the Colin McGregor Shield to Algeria: Miles Sutton and Alexandra Moore from Whakatane High School.

The Tauranga Girls' College team representing Fiji also had much to say on this topic. The Girls' College team won best dressed, as each team dressed in attire fitting to their adopted country.

The event was chaired by students Chennoah Walford from Tauranga Girls' College and Lucas Davies from Mount Maunganui College.

Teams negotiate in breaks between the debate.

Chennoah and Lucas have been working for many months to bring this event together.

This required writing up the resolutions to be debated and sorting out the logistical details required to promote and finalise the proceedings.

Event organiser and president of the Tauranga branch of the United Nations Association, Gray Southon, says the event is about education.

He says the challenge to explore another culture and political environment, and to develop skills of analysis, presentation, negotiation, argument and teamwork, are valuable experiences.