The first major house competition for the autumn term saw students in years 7 to 13 compete in House Debating. Each week throughout the half term a different year group battled it out on motions ranging from “the voting age in the UK should be lowered to 16” to “statues commemorating controversial historical figures should be kept where they are”, with the points accumulating week by week and the overall winner announced at the end of half term. There were 12 debates, 52 debaters, and 24 judges – but just one house could win the 20,000 house points for first prize! The Sixth Form started off the competition with debates on the motions “in the digital age we should not expect our data to remain private”, “humanity should fear advances in artificial intelligence”, “tourism is a force for good in the world” and “statues commemorating controversial historical figures should be kept where they are.” Year 13’s Franklin team – Leila (13 Wilberforce), Abeera (13 Ebadi), Keely (13 Ebadi) – get a special shout out for being the highest scoring team with an impressive 58 points. When all points from both year groups were added together, Honeyball finished the sixth form competition in the lead by 11 points with a total of 130, followed by Pankhurst hot on their heels with 119 points! The following week saw the Year 10s tackling the motions “British people cannot be trusted to just do the right thing; this country needs stricter law enforcement” and “CCTV and surveillance is making our society turn into a dystopian nightmare’. The Year 10 Angelou team – Alexyia (10 Tambo), Layal, Rami and Ashraf (all 10 Yousafzai) – get a special shout out for being the highest scoring team with an impressive 55 points! After the year 10 competition Angelou sped ahead, catching up with Honeyball and putting the two houses neck and neck, tied at 188 points each. The Year 9 teams were up next, tackling the motion “The UK should have a completely open border policy when it comes to immigration”. Angelou won with 55 points, and Franklin came a close second with 53 points. The standout debaters were Rayya (9 Angelou1) and Sina (9 Franklin2) – their fantastic performances earned them 20 additional points towards the final Angelou and Franklin scores. As we entered the final week of term, Angelou was in the lead with 263 points, with Honeyball in second with 228, Pankhurst in third with 215 and Franklin in fourth with 204 points.
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The penultimate competition saw Year 8 students debating for and against the idea that “everyone
