On Wednesday 13th October, Ananya, Aurora and Olivier, of Year 6 took part in a debating festival, the first ever run by Dukes Education, at Eaton Square Senior School. The day started with two training sessions; the first was on debating – where two teams take opposing sides in discussing a motion, and the second was on on public speaking – all about how to speak to an audience, including communication skills and how to use the voice and body language to get your message across.
The afternoon comprised a debating competition between all eleven schools present. Our team debated against a strong school called Broomwood Hall Upper, on a motion about whether zoos should be banned. It was a tough challenge for both teams with excellent arguments made on both sides. While the children showed great ingenuity and resilience, we lost the debate by a whisker, 81:83 but our team were, rightly, very proud of their efforts. Mr Kennedy, who supported the children found the debate most instructive and enjoyable and our competitors, Broomwood, went on to take part in the final – finishing in second place – while we came in third.
At the end there was an award ceremony in which Mr Atif Hassan, the Founder of Dukes Education, congratulated our team on their achievement and presented them with 3rd place medals. We returned to school excited and enthused about the whole day and, on Friday 15th, the team made an excellent presentation to the school assembly about their experience.
Categories: Academics