Amazing Young People Debate Contemporary Issues

On Thursday January 16th 2025 four teams from two local schools took part in our

annual Rotary Youth Debate competition held at The Beacon School,

organised jointly by the Rotary clubs of Banstead and Sutton Nonsuch.

Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, believed that debates are often

dangerous and pointless because they are more concerned with winning

than finding the truth. He thought that debates are more like a sport, with

winners and losers, than a genuine pursuit of truth. Well, our competition

didn’t seek to find any truths, but to give young people the chance to speak

in public, a great skill to acquire and something many adults find daunting!

Each team consisted of a chairperson, a proposer and an opposer and, on

Thursday, subjects considered were, better conditions for maternity and

paternity leave; gender inequality in sport; state schools aligning with

private schools for term dates and hair discrimination. Each team made

some excellent arguments both for and against and kept the audience

engaged and entertained.

Ros, our chair of judges, gave valuable feedback to each team and

student. Considering they were all aged under 13 and were speaking in

public for the first time, they all performed very well. Ros made points about

voice projection, eye contact, notes and use of humour and dramatic

pauses, valuable advice to all speakers.

After careful consideration and praise to all the students for participating,

Ros announced that the judges considered the winners were team A from

St Philomena’s and they will progress to our District semi-final next month.

Our congratulations to the winning team and admiration to all who took

part.

We would like to thank our judges and The Beacon School for hosting and

all their assistance and support. We hope all the students will continue to

improve their speaking skill and perhaps we will see them in our senior

competition in the future.

John Chamberlain