As part of our Father’s Day Focus Week, the Year 7s were challenged to debate the motion, “The role of the father is less important than the role of the mother…”.
This debate helped them to evaluate the support and strengths both parents contribute to family life.
The winning team was from Johnson House: congratulations to Isabelle Day, Megan Breese, Bethan Fish and Isaac Adams. Debating against Garrick, their team argued the importance of fathers in establishing boundaries, and also explored some of the social pressures and expectations facing parents, particularly fathers.
The judges, School Librarian Helena Cresswell and School Governor, Nina Worrall were very impressed with the confidence, preparation and strong counterarguments presented by the teams. The final scores reflected this and were very close: Garrick and Darwin took joint second place, with Seward coming third.
Helena Cresswell, school librarian, said, “The standard of debating was very high for this year group. There could definitely be some future lawyers among them!”
The most valuable debaters were Isabelle Day (Johnson) and Lucy O’Connell (Darwin). The judges also awarded a special mention to Eva Cooper-Charles and Mila Stamenov for their strong contributions to the debates.
