Epsom College – Commendation from the English Speaking Union for Debating
23 Mar 2017
The Lent Term is the busiest in the Debating Society’s calendar, as we take part in several national competitions.
In January, Angus Percival (U6 C) and Aneirin Horvath (5 Rn), having performed well to win through from the first round of the English Speaking Union’s Mace competition, took part in the regional semi-final, held at Surbiton High School.
They won their debate, proposing the motion that defendants in criminal trials should be represented only by state-employed lawyers, against a good team from St Andrew’s School. Despite the strengths of their case, they lost narrowly to two very experienced teams from Tiffin School for Girls and KCS Wimbledon.
In February we took two teams to the Oxford Schools Debating competition regional round, held at St Catherine’s School, Guildford. This was held in the rather more fearsome British Parliamentary format, in which four teams go head-to-head debating motions which they have had only 15 minutes to prepare, with no outside influence.
Our junior team of Mackenzie Mully (5 R) and Emilie Walsh (L6 R), taking part for the first time, learned much against an exceptional Wellington team, but won their second debate on the motion that the Olympics should always be held in London. The senior team of Angus Percival (U6 C) and Joe Kendal (U6 F) did well in their first debate, but neither team progressed to the regional final.
The next major competition was the UCL School’s Cup, another British Parliamentary competition, with teams from across the South of England.
Mackenzie Mully and Hugh Smiley (L6 Rn) did very well, placing thirteenth out of 38 in the novice competition, winning one of their four debates and beating teams from Wellington, North London Collegiate and Woldingham.
The other Epsom team of Emily Vandrau (U4 R) and Aneirin Horvath put in strong performances, but the technical intricacies of the judging system meant they lost out narrowly overall. Both teams gained invaluable experience from debating against battle-hardened opposition.
Within the College, debating continues to play an important part of many houses’ lives. Carr have continued their series against Fayrer, with excellent debates on animal rights and mobile devices in schools. Rosebery have initiated Friday debates between members of their M4 and U4 tutor groups, addressing challenging topics such as mixed houses and the place of humanities subjects at GCSE. Each Friday, the debating society meets to improve our skills in technical debating and debate in various formats.
Next term, we look forward to the inter-house Darbyshire Debating competition. This year the competition is being held in the British Parliamentary format for the first time.
This year the English Speaking Union celebrates 60 years of the Mace debating competition, and offered an award to schools which can demonstrate how they are establishing a whole-school debating culture. We are delighted that Epsom received a Commendation, as the judges were impressed with the College’s initiatives that celebrate a whole-school debating culture.
Photo: The UCL School’s Cup Debating Team