On Saturday 2 May, two of our Year 10 students, Grace Annandale and Tiffany Griffiths, travelled to Cambridge to compete in the final of the International Competition for Young Debaters (ICYD).
ICYD is the top junior debating competition in the country, featuring not only the best UK schools but also teams from around the world, including Ireland, Greece, Hungary, Canada and South Africa. The standard of debating is very high and our students had done well just to make it through the qualifying rounds and reach the final.
The day consisted of four rounds of debating with the top eight teams breaking to the semi-finals. The motions are announced on the day and the students are only given 15 minutes to prepare. Grace and Tiffany did very well, coming 15th out of 56 teams. Although they just missed out on the semis, this is a great achievement considering they have only been debating for one year. It certainly bodes well for the future of debating at Sevenoaks.
The motions on the day were as follows:
· This House would legalise the use of performance enhancing drugs
· This House would abolish NASA
· This House would make immigrants take a language and values test
· This House would abolish the minimum wage
