It was great to resume our Debating & Interview clubs at The American School of London now with both middle school and lower school – and we were delighted with the talent and potential of the groups.
In the first two weeks we will be doing an introduction to debating and public speaking and building on key skills covered by those in our club from the previous academic year. This week we turned to debating structure and our skill of the week how to build a proposition argument and the best use of body language during a debate or interview setting. We will continue to review these skills over the coming weeks.
For warm-up questions we looked at (with 'Why'/justification absolutely crucial):
(i) What was the Highlight from your holidays? &
(ii) What are your goals for the new academic year?
(iii) (The philosophical question) 'How do you know the moon is not made of cheese?'
From holidays abroad, to time with friends and family and sporting adventure we heard a wide variety of tremendous highlights, but crucially with the all important ‘because’. We are looking to build on the point of supporting an argument with justification: evidence, stories and in time rhetorical questions.
Goals for the term included exam and school success, piano grades, sporting progress and more reading and focus. We will pick up on goals in more detail next week.
Each week we aim to cover a Newsround (and we encourage the groups to be as aware of news and the world around them as possible, we recommend for example First News, Newsround, The Week Junior). This week we touched on:
The US Presidential Election
The Kamala Harris & Donald Trump debate
The Olympics & Paralympics
The International Space Station
Conflict in the Middle East
The War in Ukraine
The new Labour Government's plans for the UK
Our debates covered the motions:
(i) Should the Olympic Rings stay on the Eiffel Tower?; & Should the Mayor of Paris need to consult her constituents?
(ii) Are there too many exams? (following a BBC/OCR article/review)
(iii) This House believes we still need coins? & Will the coinage help raise awareness for endangered UK wildlife?
A very impressive start to the term - well done all!
Very well done to all for such excellent contributions!
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