Fareham schools battled it out in the first inter-school debating competition.
Boundary Oak School, Brookfield Community School, Cams Hill School, Fareham Academy, Henry Cort Community College, and Portchester Community School each selected a team of two Year 8 pupils to debate at Fareham College last Friday, with other pupils, teachers and parents supporting the teams.
The teams debated a variety of interesting and topical issues, with one team proposing a motion and the other opposing. In the first round, Brookfield Community School proposed that ‘This house would make university education free for students’, opposed by Fareham Academy. The second round saw Henry Cort Community School propose that ‘This house believes that the media has become too powerful’, opposed by Boundary Oak School. In the third, and final, round Cams Hill School proposed ‘This house would ban animal testing’ with Portchester Community School opposing.
The six teams were then assessed on three criteria including content, strategy and style and awarded points for the delivery of their arguments.
Following careful consideration by the judges - including Cllr Connie Hockley, Mayor of Fareham, Mark Waldron, editor of the Portsmouth News and Nigel Duncan, principle of Fareham College - Portchester Community School was selected as winner after tallying up the most points during its debate on animal testing.
I thank our brilliant judges for taking part in the debates, and I congratulate Thomas Hughes and Holly Connelly from Portchester Community School, winners of this year’s competition, for their great performance and I look forward to welcoming them to Parliament.
As their prise for winning, Thomas and Holly will now receive a tour of the Houses of Parliament, and get special tickets to watch PMQs.
Kelly Bud, a teacher from Portchester Community School, said:
“We were delighted to participate in Fareham Schools Debating Competition and thrilled to have won such a prestigious prize. The standard of speeches from all schools were very high but we are so proud that our students were awarded first place.
“Thomas and Holly were given such outstanding feedback about the way in which they engaged the audience and the mature content of their speech.
“Our student winners are incredibly excited about spending the day observing the workings of Parliament. The competition has motivated students to start their own debating society. One of the aims of the society will be to prepare new champions for next year’s competition!
“The school has a close working relationship with its local MP and we look forward to engaging our students with politics and debating in the future.”
I would also like to say well done to all of the other pupils who took part, including Sadie Mitchell, Kemal Mustafa , Lilly Mizon, Kiara Taylor, Ethan Vandra, James Murphy Elise Griffiths, Jacob Kniveton, Ava Butler and Jack Rees. All of the pupils who took part should be very proud of themselves, I was very impressed by the engaging and high standard of the debates.