UCL’s annual schools debating competition commenced on Saturday (18th of February), which saw some of the most prestigious schools in the country such as Eton and St Paul’s Girls’ School battle it out, as only twelve out of the forty times could break into the final to try and become the champion this British Parliamentary style debate competition. Representing Dorking and all the state schools out there, was my school, The Ashcombe.

The event took place in the heart of London at UCL’s Institute For Education, just around the corner from the famous Fitzroy hotel, where Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia lived. Forty teams participated in the competition on Saturday, including Prince William and Harry’s former school, Eton, as well as some of the highest fee-paying schools in the country, such as Tiffin Girl’s school and Sevenoaks school. Amongst the fearsome bunch was state school, The Ashcombe, Dorking, who entered four teams, two of which had been debating for less than a year and put up a fierce fight, given their inexperience compared to the debate titans they were up against.

Insider Louise Murphy said that she overheard the Eton teacher regularly referring to their “debate coach from Hong Kong”, who was talking them through each stage of the competition over FaceTime and regularly gave students a one-to-one mentoring session, so it’s no wonder multiple teams from the institution broke into the final twelve.

So, what is British Parliamentary debating I hear you ask… Unlike the back and forth argumentative dispute that you would think of in any usual debate, this style embodies a far more civilized proving of merit, as each person gets five minutes to talk, in which they must explain why their side of any given motion carries the most weight. But there’s a twist. Teams cannot pick which side of the argument they prefer, rather they are assigned a position and must passionately convince everyone else why their allotted viewpoint is the best, after just fifteen minutes of preparation time and no internet. To complicate matters further, it’s also not as straightforward as one team versus another. Each debate sees four teams going head-to-head, in which each team is given one of the following positions: opening government, closing government, opening opposition or closing opposition. While the first two positions must argue for the statement, the latter two must argue against the statement and so not only must teams prove why their side of the argument is the winner, but also why their points are better than those of the other team on the same side. Tricky, huh?

This particular competition saw three rounds of debate each with either a “This house believes” motion, or a “This house would” motion, meaning teams had to argue about values and beliefs as well as the implementation of a given policy. This aided UCL’s debate society to find the most well-rounded team.

The first debate focused on whether Chat GPT (an artificial intelligence chatbot that can write essays and provide summaries of books) should be allowed in schools. Teams considered impacts such as the risk of plagiarism of homework against the benefits it could bring to lower-income students and students with disabilities. Then, the second round saw a motion on whether it is more important for the environmentalist movement to focus on changing the actions of individuals rather than major institutions such as the government or corporations. And finally, if participants hadn’t already been put through their paces enough, the final debate looked into the advantages and disadvantages of childhood focused parenting over that of which is adulthood focused.

While none of the teams from Ashcombe managed to make it through to the final, they gave it their best shot and can proudly say each team came first or second in at least one of their debates. They go home with their heads held high and will wait to hear over the next few days which team won the competition; the final took place in the evening of the same day and results should be released imminently.