On Tuesday 20 October, a group of four Year 13 pupils, accompanied by Mr Tristan Elby, headed to Leighton Park School in Reading to participate in the Debating Matters competition, held by the Institute of Ideas. Being new to the contest, neither pupils nor staff members knew what to expect. The competition is a nationally run contest, specifically for Sixth Form students. Matt Brown, Claire Fifield, Ollie Riley and Ed Warren attended the competition. Split down into pairs, the teams tackled difficult subjects such as doping in sport and sex-selective abortion. Each round had a Chairperson and was judged by three judges from such companies as Schools Week, Quintiles and Syngenta.
The Sixth Formers participated in the second and third debates of the evening. Matt and Claire were paired together, and did incredibly well to win their debate, which was entitled ‘we should permit the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport.’ They took on the topic against Bartholomew Comprehensive, Eynsham, and were complimented on their teamwork and confident speaking. Chairwoman Rowena Conway commented that she could hardly believe that Shiplake were new to the competition!
Ollie Riley and Ed Warren then took on the controversial subject, ‘the UK should ban sex selective abortion’, against participants from the Holt School. The Shiplake Sixth Formers threw the debate on its head, posing the question ‘should the government have the power to tell us to KEEP a foetus against our will?’ The debate was incredibly close, and the judges were split. However, victory went to the Holt by a small margin. Despite just being edged out, the judges complimented Ollie and Ed on their excellent teamwork and very strong arguments. Chairwoman Rose Davis, who had chaired an earlier round and stayed to watch the rest of the competition, commented that she found Ollie and Ed’s debate ‘so frustrating, but that is only testament to their diverse arguments’, and that of all the earlier rounds she had seen, this was ‘phenomenal, definitely National Final worthy.’ Mr Elby was very pleased with the event and impressed with the maturity of the debates. He hopes to attend the competition again next year, this time determined to come home with a victory!
