The Great Debate

Five articulate students from Year 11 and the Sixth Form took on two verbal battles in the South East England Regional Round of the Oxford Schools’ Debating Competition last night. Their motions were ‘’This House believes it should be mandatory that 50% of national parliaments are female” and “This House believes that professional athletes should not be viewed as role models”. Speaking against the former and for the latter, our two teams did an excellent job, presenting a series of complex arguments and persuasive ideas after only 15 minutes of ‘short prep’ – where they were not allowed to use either the internet or their teachers.

The competition is the largest British Parliamentary school-level debating competition in the world and involves around 350 schools. Having been established over twenty years ago by the Oxford Union, students aged 14-18 are given “an excellent chance to develop their skills and confidence in public speaking, thoughtful argumentation and analytical problem solving”.

Due to pandemic restrictions, the 2022 competition was hosted virtually, providing students with the additional challenge of trying to debate via Teams.

Leighton Park’s Debating club, ‘Debating Matters”, is led by David Hammond and Richard Duckett. Assistant Head of Sixth Form and Head of Politics, Richard Duckett, commented “I’m really proud of all five students who really put in a superb effort against some very stiff and well experienced competition.  It was a massive challenge, which they stepped up to magnificently.”

Max (Year 11) reflected, “The topics that were selected were very interesting and it was fascinating to see all the different viewpoints everyone in the competition had. I think the debating hobby at LP is exceptional and I would highly recommend it because of how much it broadens your way thinking and perspectives on different aspects of life.” Harriet (Year 11) added, “I really liked the opportunity that the debate provided for me to interact in a competitive setting with other schools. I am quite new to the Oxford debating style so learnt a lot from the experience with the formal debate. I love the debating hobby at LP because it helps me to develop my speaking skills but also because I get to have so many opinions!”