On Thursday 17th November, a team of Year 6 pupils from Avon House attended a Debating Challenge at Bancroft’s School. Debating is a key element in the Prep School Curriculum and we were delighted to join with other local schools in order to further extend and develop the skills and character of our pupils. Debating helps in developing the pupils essential critical thinking skills. It enhances their ability to present reasoned and well-prepared arguments as well as enabling them to question the opponent’s stance or conclusion. In this way, Debating requires pupils to engage in all four areas of the building blocks of character, as designed by the Jubilee Centre, using intellectual, moral, performance and civic values in their preparation, delivery and response to issues raised.
In a busy debating challenge, Avon House’s Team (Aaron, Maiya and Mia) took part in three debates. The first debate was against Bancroft’s school, where the children were arguing against the proposal that ‘The world would be a better place without cars.’ This was followed by a debate against Chingford CofE school, in which they were arguing against the proposal that ’The future of food is Meat Free,’ before finally competing against, St Aubyn’s where they were arguing for the proposal that ‘The legal age of voting should be dropped to 10 years old.’
Aaron, Maiya and Mia did themselves proud and were excellent role models representing our school. For John Manning, The Head of Prep, this event only further highlighted the importance of debating, “Debating extends and challenges pupils in a way that no other subject does in the Curriculum. Not only are pupils expected to think on their feet, even more valuable to me is the ability that pupils gain in understanding a situation from another person’s point of view.”
Debating, where pupils discuss key moral and ethical issues continue to be part of our Weekly Prep School timetable and opportunities are being looked where we can debate new and current issues with other schools in the future.
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