Last Saturday, seven Year 11 students took part in an all day debating competition at St Paul’s Girls’ School. The event introduces ‘speaking out’ skills to inexperienced debaters with university debaters running workshops, before judging a final competition. 

It was our pupils’ first ever time debating in a competition, where the motions are announced on the day and students are given 15 minutes to prepare (with no devices). They all prepared thoughtful lines of argument, based on logic and reasoning, thinking on their feet and responding in the moment. 

Congratulations to Aishani, Chloe, Priya, Jaya, Satya, Daisy, and Polly. Special mention to Aishani for pairing up with a student she did not know from another school, and also to Daisy and Polly, who made it to the Non-Novice Silver Final and were in the Top Ten Novice Debaters of the competition.

There were four motions in total, including “This House Regrets the predominant belief that suffering builds character” and “This House Believes that secondary school teachers should actively encourage their students to pursue a humanities degree at university”.