ESU MACE Debating Competition Winners (and Runners-up!)

Our two Withington teams, made up of Year 11 pupils, were very successful at the ESU Debating Competition which was held on 5th December.

In the competition, the chairperson and questioner from each team is paired with a speaker from another school. They then have 20 minutes to ask questions of the speaker and to find out about their topic. The chair is then required to introduce the speaker and the questioner must devise questions during the speech and address these to the speaker when she is finished speaking. It is quite a challenging task.

Debating ‘International economic institutions have simply become the tools of western supremacy’, WGS Team One won the heat and will go through to the North West Regional final to be held at The Grange School on 30th March 2019. In this team, Imaan S received a prize for the best chairperson and Safa S won a prize for outstanding performance for her speech, presentation and aptitude in responding to questions.

Debating ‘Freedom of speech must be an unrestricted right in a true democracy’, WGS Team Two were runners-up but may also have a chance to go through to the next round depending on the scores from heats run in other parts of the North West. Emma W received a prize for best chairperson.

Ms Furlong, who prepared the girls for the competition, said: “ The girls did exceptionally well. I do hope both teams will go through to the next round. The round after that is the Grand Final which will be held at Churchill College, Cambridge, in April.”