On Wednesday 31st January, the St Mary’s Debate Team travelled to South Wilts Grammar School in Salisbury to take part in the second round of the English Speaking Union (ESU) Mace Debate Tournament. The competition was comprised of three debates, involving six teams.

Norah C, Bea T and Dara L took speaking roles in a debate against Hounsdown School, opposing the proposition that 'this House believes that prisoners should be able to vote'. Lara G, Emma L, Isla R and Arabella W took a supporting role in the debate, helping their teammates develop their arguments and providing questions for speakers in the other debates that took place in the second round.

The St Mary’s team had spent weeks researching their debate topic and shaping their arguments in the Upper School Debate Club. This was evident in the well-crafted speeches that each speaker delivered and the confidence with which they were able to challenge the points made by the opposing team. The standard of the debate was very high and both teams engaged in many rhetorical tactics to enhance their arguments.

The St Mary’s students demonstrated swiftness of thinking when dealing with points of information from their opponents and questions from the floor. They bravely took themselves out of their comfort zones to speak on a challenging subject for a prolonged time and they earned praise from the judges for the quality of their arguments and the depth of supporting detail that they used to support these arguments. All members of the team contributed to the other debates, asking insightful questions on the subjects of UK education reform and the abolition of the House of Lords.

The high quality of the contributions made by all teams gave the ESU judging panel a difficult job. It took them 40 minutes of deliberation to reach their final judgement. Despite St Mary’s scoring highly on the judging criteria, the Hounsdown team achieved the highest score of the evening and so moved on to the next round in the competition.

The St Mary’s team received individual feedback from the judges and were satisfied that a tough competition had provided them with an experience that they will use to develop their debating and public speaking skills. They should be proud of producing an excellent performance and making the judges’ task of picking the winner a difficult one.

Adrian Stoten, History and Politics Teacher