This was another excellent debating competition between St Philip's School and St Andrew's School via Zoom and this term, with the addition of a Socratic Club members team.
It was tremendous to see such impressive contributions and summary speaking from each team in addition to wider points and POIs from the floor.
The motion:
'This House believes that robots can replace teachers'.
In the opening vote a majority of each group opposed the motion, and this moved somewhat by the second telling.
It was argued that we already use many robots in education, but overall the class teacher could not be replaced. Whilst it was felt there could be economic savings, emotional intelligence and adapting to the situation required a human being to be present. It was, however, argued that in time more teaching roles would be replaced by robots, but ultimately a teacher (human being) was still required.
Fire safety and reallocating staff for pastoral roles and assisting with mental health also featured in the wider discussion.
St Philip's performed extremely well with a superb array of POIs. St Andrew's narrowly held the day in their play-off with St Philip's, showing a more cohesive team argument.
The Socratic Club members team edged both schools in terms of argumentation and structure - with a superb opening and summary.
Well done all for participating to such a high standard and we very much look forward to the rematch in due course.
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