Recent Debating Success
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| The Debating Team |
(not all team members were available for the photograph)
THE NATIONAL FINAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS ENGLISH PUBLIC SPEAKING COMPETITION TOOK PLACE AT WESTMINSTER SCHOOL ON SATURDAY 6TH MAY WHERE THE TOP SCHOOLS OF THE 500 WHO ENTERED COMPETED FOR THE OVERALL TITLE
The WGCS Team
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| James Barnett, Dominic Lynch and Edward Henderson |
Congratulations the Team came in the last 9 out of 500 schools the and were the only state school in the final.
The winners were Cheltenham Ladies College
THE BRITISH ISLES YOUNG DEBATING FINAL AT THE OXFORD UNION
On Saturday 29th April, Bruce Rothberg and Stephen Bailey were placed 8th out of 64 teams in the British Isles Young Debating (U15) final at the Oxford Union. This placed them 8th out of the 270 who originally entered the competition. These two pupils managed to achieve a higher placing than many quite notable schools – Westminster, Latymer, JAGS etc. This is probably our highest placing in a competition this big.
Congratulations this is a real achievement.
LONDON REGION ENGLISH SPEAKING UNION
On Tuesday, 21st March, the following Y11 Public Speaking team won the London region of the English Speaking Union competition:
Dominic Lynch (chair – also named ‘best chair’)
James Barnett (speaker – on the subject of war crimes)
Edward Henderson (questioner)
Edward and Dominic had to work with a speaker from City of London School, while James was drawn with a team from the John Lyon School.
This is a great achievement for the boys – 65 schools entered the London region. They will now go on to the National Final at Westminster School where the top 9 schools from the 500 who entered the competition nationally will compete for the overall title.
EVENING STANDARD OPEN PAIRS SHIELD
We had a very successful day at the Debate Chamber / Evening Standard Open Pairs Shield on Saturday 4th March. This was an ‘open’ competition for School age teams from the London area, and included a number of the current England National Debate Squad, students from Latymer, Westminster, City of London boys etc. All our boys competed in 4 debates – on animal testing, Guantanamo Bay, religious / racial hatred laws and farm subsidies. Final results were as follows:
Out of 52 teams …
Wallington A (James Pickard Y11, Alex Helliwell, L6) – 6th, just missing the final
Wallington B (James Barnett and Dominic Lynch, Y11) – 19th
Wallington C (Bruce Rothberg and Stephen Bailey, Y10) – 28th
Out of 104 speakers …
Alex Helliwell – 27th
James Barnett and James Pickard – 30th =
Dominic Lynch – 48th
Given that most of the students at this competition were 6th formers, all the boys acquitted themselves very well.
On Friday Tiyi Morris and Jaimie Henry lost narrowly to Sutton Grammar in the 3rd round of the UNA debating competition.
On Thursday – in the second round of the Rotary public speaking competition, the senior team of James Barnett, Jonathan Akinyemi and Ed Henderson failed to qualify for the next round; however the Intermediate team (Calum George, Sam Chislett, Bruce Rothberg) qualified for the Third Round / District Final.
Next Saturday I look forward to seeing how James Barnett and William Stuart will fare in the National Finals of the Oxford Union Debating Competition.
I really think the boys are beginning to live up to their potential this year; in time I am sure we could have UK champion / England team member material at Wallington. It has also been good to see that 22 boys / girls have had the chance to represent the school this year so far.
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| Edward Henderson, Jonathan Akinyemi and James Barnett |
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| Back Row:Tiyi Morris, Jaimie Henry, Sarah Lousie Kelly. Front Row: Alex Helliwell, Simon Stone, Raza Naeem |
OXFORD UNION COMPETITION
On Monday 6th February: two teams went to the regional round of the Oxford Union competition at St. John’s Leatherhead. Competing against 34 other teams the ‘A’ team (William Stuart, U6 and James Barnett, Y11) made it through to the national finals day in Oxford in March; the ‘B’ team (Duncan Coleman, U6 and Jaimie Henry, L6) missed out narrowly. This is the first time in some years that a Wallington team has reached the national finals of a large schools competition (285 teams nationally) and a considerable achievement for the ‘A’ team.
On Thursday 9th February, William Stuart and Alex Helliwell defeated Wilson’s school in the second round of the UNA debating competition. There will be a 3rd round match against Sutton Grammar in the next few weeks.
ROTARY YOUTH SPEAKERS COMPETITION
On 28th January two teams took part in the first round of the Rotary Youth Speakers competition at Tadworth. Both of them won their respective local competitions, and a trophy will be delivered to the school during the week. This means that they will be sent into the area semi-finals in March
Senior Team: Jonathan Akinyemi, James Barnett, Edward Henderson – speaking on the British Empire
Intermediate Team: Bruce Rothberg, Calum George (y8), Sam Chislett (y8) – speaking on Identity Cards
