GDST Debating Tournament

On the 13th of June, 14 schools and over 100 students from across the GDST took part in the first ever GDST debating tournament. Putney High School debating club divided into four teams and over the course of the day took part in three debates each. Before the tournament started, we interviewed two PHS debaters, Mia and Isabelle. They both said they were looking forward to the competition and had done lots of practise beforehand on quick thinking and making a good argument.

In the first round the debate motion was “This House would make private tuition illegal”. Putney did really well scoring one 1st, two 2nds and one 3rd. After the first round there was a lunch break where we interviewed Katie Norbury, a Northampton High judge. She wanted to see debaters explain their points fully and express clearly what they believed in. In the second round the motion was “This House welcomes the rise of virtual living”. This time Putney scored two 1sts and two 2nds topping their game once again! In the third and final round the motion was “This House would appoint MPs by national lottery”. Putney once again played at an extremely high standard giving us another two 1sts and two 2nds which led us to be in 4th place overall with 231 points.

The winning school was South Hampstead High so we interviewed Chiara, a member of the winning team. She was very shocked and happy about winning and thought that the whole tournament experience was very helpful as there were motions and points that she wouldn’t usually have considered. She believed that there were different standards to the debaters and that some were more fluent than others but overall everyone did really well and the results were close.

We would like to say a huge thank you to all the debaters, judges and finally Dr Kiek and Mr Stenberg for organising this incredible, benefiting event!