Victory for Malvern St James Girls' School Debaters

Published by Malvern St James Girls' School on Thursday 9th of April 2015

The second heat of the ESU Public Speaking Competition was held on Thursday 12 February at Royal Grammar School, Worcester. There was strong competition between the six teams taking part, with pupils from Bromsgrove School, Malvern St James, RGS and Pershore High School going head to head. Malvern St James entered two teams and are delighted to announce their teams achieved both first and second place! Unfortunately competition rules mean that only the first team are able to go through to the next round of the competition.

The first team debated the question 'Does intervention from Western states fuel terrorism?' with Phoebe Nairn taking the position of Chair, Jenny Gallagher as Speaker and Fiyin Durojaiye as Questioner. The second team, which consisted of Imy Townsend (Chair), Alex Knapper (Speaker) and Chloe Parker (Questioner), debated the controversial topic of pre-natal selection.

As well as proving themselves to be the best teams on the day, Malvern St James girls scooped two of the individual awards - Phoebe Nairn won the Best Chair Award and Chloe Parker the Best Questioner Award. Congratulations to both teams on these fantastic results.

Mrs Shepherd, English teacher in charge of debating, said 'This is a wonderful result and we are very proud of our debating teams. We wish the girls every success in the next stage of the competition, when they will be considering the view 'Celebrities have a right NOT to be taken for role models'.