The Socratic Club - 1 February 2026

This week saw another very impressive set of Junior and Senior Socratic club sessions.

Our skill focus took in pre-empting opposition/proposition points and it was great to see members engage so maturely with this sophisticated element of debating.

Warm-up questions included:

‘What is your favourite fictional character and why?’ &

‘Should children be consulted when the government looks to implement a law that will directly impact them (e.g. a social media ban for under 16s)?

Fictional characters showed the depth of reading ability and the tremendous range of our students – from Sherlock Holmes, to Poirot, from Frodo in the Lord of the Rings, to Percy Jackson, and Harry Potter, we saw a wonderful array of characters, with excellent justification. ‘Perseverance’ featured as a recurring theme.

On consultation, the groups remained divided. Intriguingly the maturity of those shown suggesting they should not be consulted because they did not have the vote or experience, rather pointed to the need to consult such intelligent students.

Our newsround featured items from Greenland, the Davos conference, Iran, China, Japan, Sir Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham, and the forthcoming Six Nations and Winter Olympics.

Debating motions included:

• ‘This House would bring-back or reintroduce a form of Concorde’ (given a recent anniversary stamp release) – we asked if it made sense that we could travel to the USA more quickly in the past, than currently

• ‘This House would ban fast fashion’

• ‘Should NASA be allowed to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon?’

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We saw a wonderful set of contributions and arguments across the groups and across each motion. Space exploration and whether to build a settlement on the Moon certainly had the groups thinking. All in the Senior Group saw the need to tackle Fast Fashion, but were reluctant to see affordability removed from clothing. Both Junior and Senior groups opposed the reintroduction of Concorde.

Very well done all.