Shrewsbury
Sixth Formers gain experience at Oxford Debating Competition
Sapna C (G, LVI) reflects on the regional round of the Oxford University Debating Competition.
On Monday the 28th of February, following a student led initiative, a few of us in the Lower Sixth took part in the regional round of the Oxford Schools debating competition. This was a debating competition that consisted of debating two different surprise motions in the British parliamentary format, with only fifteen minutes of preparation time.
The two motions that we got to propose that day were ‘This house believes that school classes should be grouped by ability not age’, and ‘This house believes that at least 50% of MPs should be female’. Both were relatively controversial debates from which various different ideas arose, for example the argument of being female vs. being a woman. Coincidently for each debate both teams were designated the role of closing government. This role involved us building on the previous team’s arguments as well as summarising the debate as a whole.
Both teams performed incredibly in the debates, unfortunately neither team made it through to the finals. Nevertheless, it was a superb and unique opportunity to heighten our debating skills and was overall a very enjoyable evening of discussion.
