By Mrs Lincoln (English and Psychology Teacher)

This week has seen a flurry of debating and public speaking events! 

On Tuesday, three students (Zoya in Year 11, Alisha in Year 11 and Ruqayya in Year 9) took part in the first round of the ESU’s Public Speaking competition. Ruqayya took on the role of speaker and had prepared an engaging speech on why we should forgive our enemies, as nothing else annoys them so much. Alisha took on the role of chair and was paired with a speaker from Bedford Modern School. The judge commented that she did an excellent job introducing the speech and maintaining a warm yet authoritative tone. Zoya then acted as questioner, posing some thought-provoking and insightful questions to the speaker. Although they didn’t make it through to the next round, we’re proud of how they represented the school and they all received some excellent feedback from the judge. 

On Wednesday, we invited over students from Goldington Academy to take part in a Year 7 and 8 debate competition. The Year 7 team were arguing that ‘Dogs make better pets than cats’, whilst the Year 8 team were arguing against the statement that ‘If we had the power to time travel, it would be dangerous.’ A particular well done to Jaya (Year 8) who won an award for ‘Best Rebuttals.’ A big thank you also goes to Miya (Year 10) who chaired the event and Nicole and Lara (Lower Sixth) who volunteered to help judge the competition. For many students involved, this was the first time they had ever participated in a formal debate – hopefully the start of many more to come! 

To round off a busy week, on Thursday we took a team of Year 10 students for a day of debating at St Francis’ College – read next week’s Edit to see how they got on!