The Socratic Club - 22nd March 2026

This was a superb final set of sessions before the Easter break.

Our skill focus this week turned to POIs and Summary preparation.

Our newsround reflected on events in the Middle East, the rise in fuel pricing and inflationary pressures, as well as football and other sporting news, and the Oscars.

Warm-up questions included:

·         ‘What would you change in your school if you were in charge, and why?’

·         ‘What are your favourite hobbies out of school?’

-          This included an amazing set of activities from swimming, to chess, fencing, singing, piano, taekwondo, cycling and lego

We then turned to the world's happiest countries (with Finland at the top for nearly a decade); and discussed why so many in the top 10 are Scandinavian? & whether this related to lifestyle or geography or culture.

Debating motions included:

·         ‘This House believes that cinema/film is more important than ballet & opera’

·         ‘This House would replace important figures from national history with animals on our bank notes’

·         ‘This House would rather be an Ancient Greek or Roman, than an Early Modern or Tudor’

·         ‘This House would rather live in the Ancient world than in the current digital age’

·         ‘This House believes that cartoons are more powerful than photographs’

In the Senior group we were joined by Dr Elizabeth Evenden-Kenyon, Fellow in Medieval and Modern Languages at Oxford University. This allowed for a series of fascinating debates and philosophical reflections on life in historical time frames – taking into account climate, weather, co-education, class, social media and technology. Well done all for such impressive contributions at what was in essence a university style discussion/series of debates!

Great work from all! Wishing everyone a super break and looking forward to catching up for the Summer term.