Student Blog: Taking on the Cambridge Union parliamentary debate

Written by Gabrielle Parkinson (L6GRO)

On 11 January, The King’s School took two teams of Lower Sixth students to the Cambridge Union parliamentary debate, hosted by Urmston Grammar school in Manchester. Throughout the course of the day, both teams undertook four debates with a variety of topics ranging from whether or not the minimum wage should be increased, to whether National Service should be reinstated. Both teams debated well with both winning at least one of the four debates that they had competed in.

The first King’s team included Ross Clark (L6WER) and myself and the second King’s team included George Arnold (L6LES) and Kieran Moon (L6BRD). The teams were separated for the majority of the rounds, however, in the final round, they debated against each other with the second King’s team coming out on top.

Tough competition was faced and although neither team will be progressing to the final in Cambridge, both team’s efforts were highly commendable. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and a thank you is needed to Ms Rutberg, Faculty Head of Social Sciences & Maths, for organising the trip and for coaching the debating teams. We definitely learned from this valuable experience and look forward to putting it into practice in further competitions.