Thursday 10th November saw the inaugural debating competition between girls from Year 10 and boys from The John Lyons School. This collaboration was organised by Miss Moss and Mrs Paul, a former member of the English Department now Head of English at The John Lyons School.
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Five initial debates took place and whilst it was undoubtedly a battle of the sexes, all participants maintained an extremely high level of debating throughout. Motions such as 'This House Believes the media has an entirely negative influence on society' and 'This House Believes that caring about climate change is a waste of time', were debated in the first round. The judges then collectively decided on three speakers from each school to debate in the final with the motion 'This House Believes that money is more important than brains'. These finalists were Izzy Benjamin (10L), Nonye Irukwu (10B) and Charlie Morgan (10N). The girls faced tough opposition from the boys at this stage, and were challenged by several points from their peers in the floor debate too. Ultimately, the girls managed to controversially sway the audience's votes to agree that money is in fact more important than brains.
The evening was a great success and I know the girls are already looking forward to more competitions in the future. It was also particularly lovely to see how the Year 13 members of Debating Society, along with other sixth form girls who chaired the debates, supported the Year 10 girls in what was their first proper competition.
On behalf of all the girls, I'd finally like to thank the English Department for judging the debates meticulously and enabling this fantastic collaboration to happen.
By Jessie Mayer Yr 13
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From a Year 10 perspective
On the 10th November, 15 girls took part in debates against boys from The John Lyon's School. We debated on many different topics, from ‘This House Believes TV does more harm than good' to ‘This House Believes co-ed schools are better than same-sex schools'. These debates were all incredibly interesting and four out of five of these were won by the NLCS team. After these rounds, three girls were picked to debate in a final round, in proposition of the motion ‘This House Believes money is more important than brains'. This proved to be more challenging than expected, as we entirely disagreed with the motion itself! I really enjoyed taking part in the debate and felt very honoured to be chosen for the final. This competition has definitely inspired me to be more involved in debating events within school.
By Charlie Morgan, 10N
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