House Debating 2018

by Vashti Turner  on April 3, 2018  in  House Competitions

Our second major house competition for the Spring term was our annual House Debating competition. Heats took place on Thursday 15th March, with the top debaters from each house going head to head debating the motions “This house believes people caught with a knife should serve a life sentence”, “This house believes that capital punishment should be legalised for people who commit murder”, “This house believes that plastic surgery should be banned” and “This house believes that people should have to pay to stay in hospital.”

Angelou and Pankhurst were victorious in the heats and progressed to the final on Thursday 8th February, with Franklin and Honeyball competing in the finals for 3rd and 4th place. With Franklin still in the lead for the House Cup at the close of the Spring 1 term, Pankhurst and Angelou were keen to take full advantage of this opportunity to win 20,000 house points to help close the gap.

On Thursday 22nd March the whole school tuned in to watch the finals via live stream – a KAA first! Students watching from their form rooms cheered their fellow students and watched with anticipation. As ever, everyone was impressed by the quality of the debates – with each house selecting their top four debaters from across all year groups.

The motion for both the final and the 3rd place play off was “This house believes that the police should have access to all of our social media for public protection.” Staff and students alike were keen to know who had won the 20,000 house points, but the results were not announced until the end of term assembly. Many congratulations to Pankhurst for their victory helping, them to close the gap on Franklin!

Many thanks to special guest judge, Governor Dunstan Hadley, for joining the panel for the Angelou-Pankhurst debate. Thanks also must go to Miss Green and the English department for organising a riveting house competition.