St Andrew's School - 19th May 2025

This week saw another excellent debating session with our St Andrew's debating and interview group. We began with a tremendous assembly introduction! 

Our newsround looked at The Chelsea Flower Show, Trump's Gulf trade tour, AI news and the need/argument for nuclear power, to the War in Ukraine, the inauguration of a new Pope, and the conflict in Israel-Gaza. 

For skills this week we focussed on closing statements - a key part to the conclusion section of any debate.

Our warm-up questions asked/explored: 

• 'Is it better to be right or better to be kind?'

• 'Describe/discuss a topic that you have been working on recently at school or at home'

Circumstance - 'it depends' - had the resounding vote in the first instance. 

History, Scientific experiments, Geography projects and artistic work all featured. 

We then divided into teams for our set-piece debates. The motions:

'This House believes audio books are better than printed books';

'This House would invest in nuclear energy for the AI industry'; &

'This House thinks that theatre/plays are better than cinema/movies'.

Voting remained split during the session, with some change at the second telling in each case.

Our unseen-'on this day' example this week looked at three images connected to the execution of Anne Boleyn. 

Well done all for such a great first half of term!