Debating Competition at the Houses of Parliament

On Friday 15th November St. Clement Danes School took a team to a Debating Competition at the Houses of Parliament. The competition was held in the debating rooms off Westminster Hall where official Parliamentary debates also take place, thus giving us a sense of grandeur but obviously adding to the nerves. The competition was being hosted by Gagan Mohindra MP, MP for the South West Hertfordshire constituency and so we were up against 6 other schools from the area including Parmiters, Merchant Taylor’s and Rickmansworth.

Our first round match was against Rickmansworth and we were taking the Opposition position to ‘This House would make entrepreneurship a school subject’. The debate was close but our team of Jonny, Louie, Lahari and Toby, ably assisted by Lani who analysed the debate and provided ongoing advice and feedback during it, narrowly lost out to the eventual winners, Rickmansworth. Unfortunately this meant that our second team of four, Nikita, Ali, Indy and Toby were unable to debate their ‘Government’ position on ‘This House would introduce a murder classification system like that in the USA’.

Having stayed to watch the semi-finals we recognised the strengths of good parliamentary debating and the judges were impressed with the students' agility in their debating skills being able to present clear, evidenced arguments but respond to questions and timely interjections.

Whilst we were only able to take 8 students in the team, a special mention and thank you should go to the Year 12s and Year 13s who unsuccessfully tried out for the team but added so much to our preparation in advance. Every member of the team played a crucial role. Congratulations to one and all and better luck next year.

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