Friday Headlines

A successful year for EHS Debaters

Senior School

27 April 2018

This has been a very successful year for the Debating Club with participation from a range of year groups in many different styles of debate, as well as some girls having the opportunity to represent EHS in external debating competitions. 

In Debating Club many different styles of debating are explored so we that we can prepare for competitions and practise our public speaking and discussion skills. We hold some debates where two teams of debaters present their ideas in speeches and can be questioned by the audience, Oxford-style debates where the whole club is split into two teams and every person has the opportunity to speak, balloon debates where each person has to pick a character and defend their contribution to society, and most recently an open discussion style debate where we explore a more general motion and each individual is able to contribute with their own opinion rather than being assigned a position. 

We have considered issues such as the equality of private school education, homeschooling, the accountability of minors on social media in later life and the treatment of prisoners after they have fulfilled their own jail sentence. We are always open to any suggestions so if you have any burning questions you would like to debate feel free to come along and put forward your ideas for motions.

This year we have also competed in two major debating competitions against other Birmingham schools. Firstly, Mariam Al-Ani and Lava Yassen competed in the Oxford debating competition at St Pauls. The team performed extremely well, having to think quickly to come up with cohesive arguments in just 15 minutes. Unfortunately we were not able to progress to the second round of this competition but we congratulate both Mariam and Lava on their excellent performance.

Secondly, Davina Margerefteh and I competed in the ESU MACE Debating competition. We were fortunate to secure first place in the first round at Joseph Chamberlain College and continued to the second round at KES. We also came first in this round and were able to compete in the West Midlands finals at Solihull School. Unfortunately we narrowly missed out on a place at the national finals and were placed as the reserve team after coming second place in this heat. I’d like to thank all the girls in the Debating Club for being so supportive in our preparations for debating competitions and we hope to continue EHS debating success next year!

Hannah Clutton-Brock

A word from Mrs Park: I would like to thank Hannah for her contribution to debating over many years. This year she has taken the lead role of Debating Captain and I have seen her grow into an incredibly able public speaker who has inspired many younger girls to get involved. Davina Mahgerefteh and Mandeep Karlcut will be taking over as Debating Captain next year. I would also like to thank Mr Wilkins for the support he has given to Debating Club this year.

 

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