Watford MP Richard Harrington organised the first Watford Inter School Debating Competition in Parliament on Thursday 13th December, with Queens beating 7 other local schools to win the inaugural championship cup.
On Thursday 13th December, 8 schools from across Watford, with almost 100 students took part in the competition, each taking part in a number of debates chaired by a variety of MPs. Accompanied by their teachers, 2 pupils from each school took part in the first round of debates on issues such as membership of the EU to whether prisoners should have the vote. The winning school from the first round went on to the semi finals with Queens taking on St Michaels in the final debate, chaired by Richard Harrington on presumed consent for organ donation.
This was the first competition of its kind, and for several of the schools, it was the first time pupils had ever taken part in debating competitions. Following the success of the first competition Richard will now be holding the competition on an annual basis and will be holding another competition for younger students in the summer of 2013.
The schools taking part were Queens, St Michaels, Rickmansworth, Watford Girls School, Watford Boys School, Bushey Academy, Parmiters and Francis Coombe. MPs chairing the debates included South West Herts MP David Gauke, Hertsmere MP James Clappison and Valerie Vaz, MP for Walsall South.
The winners of the competition received a trophy and the chance to meet with and interview the speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow MP.
Richard said:
“ I really enjoyed organising and holding this competition and was pleased to award Queens school as the very worthy winners of this first competition.
“ I wanted to hold this competition after attending and taking part in debates in some local schools, to give the chance to schools without teams an opportunity to take part and to give all students the chance to hold these debates in Parliament.
“ I was very impressed by the standard of the debates across the board with all competitors showed a real understanding of their arguments and a huge enthusiasm for the competition. I would like to thank all the students and teachers that took part as well as the MPs that gave up their time to chair the debates.
“ I hope that this is the first of many of these competitions and I look forward to welcoming all the students back again next year.”