The Senior Interhouse Debating competition took place over this Winter Term and saw Haywoods triumph in the final.
All Middle School Houses compete against one another. Each team is made up of two Form 6 pupils and two Form 7 pupils who represent their Middle School House from the previous academic year.
This year’s final saw a brilliant match up between Haywoods and Rushebrookes.
Rushebrookes’ route to the final involved a spirited opposition to the motion ‘All schools should be co-educational’ and a win against Chapmans with a relaxed and confident debating style. Some erudite points were made in opposition to the motion ‘This House believes there should be a tax on meat’ and a semifinal victory against a well-balanced and effective Barrow.
Haywoods began by opposing the motion that ‘The development of artificial intelligent will help humanity’, this saw some very good reasoning and mental dexterity from a well organised side. Next up was a resurgent Chapmans for Haywoods to overcome on the topic of banning contact sports in school. There were some brilliant points made by both Houses, however, Haywoods had a more coherent argument and were able to better deliver points of order.
For the final, kindly judged by Mr Price and Mrs Murdoch, the topic was
‘This house believes space exploration is unjustifiable’. It started with some robust, rightly so, discussion as to the definition of key terms. Rushebrookes offered many relevant, organised and well researched figures to support their claims, however, it was Haywoods who allowed for more rhetorical flourishes and cogency throughout all speakers who took the victory by the narrowest of margins. Well done to all who took part, a very high level of debating achieved this year. Bring on Spring term and the intermediates (F4 & F5) competition!