Five ambitious and courageous year nine students were selected to represent our school in the regional heat of the ‘Up for Debate’ national debating competition held at the Alleyns School in London on Wednesday 19^th April.

Kieran, Finlay, Sabe, Lauren and Noel participated in two challenging debates in the morning, centred around international adoption and the censorship of discriminatory content in music videos – against some extremely tough competition from schools all over the south east.  In the afternoon, after a short debating workshop, they drew upon all the feedback they had been given throughout the day to win their impromptu debate, arguing that plastic surgery should be banned.

As well as our team being recognised in front of the entire cohort for the excellent linguistic skills demonstrated within the debates, Mrs MacDonald, who along with Mr Doig accompanied the students on the day, states that they were ‘impeccably behaved and exceptionally well presented’ – a real credit to the school.

All year nine students completed a debating scheme of work in advance of this competition and will now continue to develop their critical thinking and support their learning through debates across the curriculum.

It is now time for year seven and eight students to learn how to debate successfully as they are about to embark on the ‘Up for Debate’ scheme of work in their literacy lessons.