Arguably Awesome Debaters Take On the Oxford Union

On Sunday 21^st January six enthusiastic members of the School’s junior Debating Club, Arguably Awesome, ventured to the Oxford Union, accompanied by their two Sixth Form club leaders and David Hammond, Head of Science and co-leader of our Senior Debating Club.

The competition saw the group divide into three pairs and each couple link up with a pair from another school to make a team of four. During round 1 each team of four verbally battled another to try to win the debate. Once each round was complete the pairs were switched around so that over the course of the day each Leighton Park pair participated in three debates working with and against couples from other schools. The topics were: Testing on Animals Should be Banned; A Parenting License Should be Introduced; and Internet Profiles Should be Anonymised.

Harriet (Upper Sixth) who co-leads the Arguably Awesome Junior Debating Club with Millie (Upper Sixth) commented: “The event was really good because you got to debate against lots of different teams from different schools and different ages too which meant that the types of debating styles were really varied so the students from the Arguably Awesome club could learn a lot of different things from these perhaps slightly more experienced competitors. It was great for them to be able to put their skills into practice and find out what real debating competitions are like because this is the first one they’ve been to. I think it was quite a steep learning curve but I think they enjoyed it!”

Lars (Year 8) didn’t know what to expect before he got there but bravely faced the competitors and was pleasantly surprised, saying “I felt really scared and really nervous but in the end it was better than I thought it would be. I thought it was a really nice experience, especially since we were going to the Oxford Union. I think it was kind of a once in a lifetime experience. So even though we didn’t really win the competition, I think it was really worth doing.”

Garet (Year 7) was also enthusiastic about the day and came out feeling “happy and ecstatic and yay!”