Frankly Speaking Debating Competition

Six year 10 students took part on Friday 28^th February in the Frankly Speaking debating competition.  The students are all currently Franklin Scholars at Copthall and were invited to take part by the organisers of the competition – Benjamin Franklin House.  We had two teams who debated motions such as ‘This House believes it is more important to teach science than art in schools’, and ‘This House believes that we should all be vegan’.  One of the teams made it through to the semi-final stage where the motion was ‘This House believes that community service is a better punishment than prison for non-violent crimes’.  This was particularly challenging because the team had to oppose the motion.  The initial heats and semi-finals were held at Benjamin Franklin House in London, which is still very much as it would have been when Benjamin Franklin lived there in the 18^th Century.  All competitors then travelled to the US Embassy for the final, and Copthall students were fully involved in listening to the finalists and contributed ideas to the floor debate.  All six students showed themselves to be confident and articulate speakers and ready to engage in high level intellectual debate.