Regional final beckons after College team’s debate victory

A student team from Birkenhead Sixth Form College has earned a place in the regional final of a prestigious country-wide debating competition.

Students Hannah Banton and Harry Gorman represented the College in the second round of the English-Speaking Union (ESU) Schools’ Mace debating competition against local Grammar School rivals, Upton Hall School, and came out on top to win a place at the regional final in February.

The competition tests a range of skills, with the presenting and debating elements being complemented by the emphasis on research and fact-finding. The topic of debate is allocated to participants rather than the students selecting it themselves, as is the decision of whether the team is standing for or against the motion.

With the subject of the debate being issued to the teams blindly, the onus is placed heavily on the students to gather their own information about the motion in hand, and talk competently and knowledgably about it in their presentations.

"The challenge is to speak passionately about something that I didn’t know a lot about beforehand, but I think that’s what’s really good about debating and getting involved in competitions – you get to research and understand things that you may well not have done before.”

Hannah Banton, final year student

In Hannah and Harry’s case, they were called upon to argue for having competitive video gaming ‘eSports’ in the Olympic games – an issue with which neither of the students was particularly familiar.

First year, Harry, said: “I didn’t have strong feelings on the matter beforehand but we were proposing for it so I researched the topic a lot, wrote the speech and then tried to refine it. Getting it just right was the most difficult part.”

Harry and Hannah won their places in the team through hard-fought auditions held in the College’s Debate Club, run by Politics teacher, Jane Cavanagh.

Harry explained that he his presentation in the competition, held at Merchant Taylor’s school in Crosby, had to be a deceptively-long seven minutes.

He said: “It’s definitely longer than anything I’ve done before. And the nerves did kick in. I forgot a pen so I was meant to write down some points for the summing up speech at the end but I couldn’t. I ended up having to wing it but I think it went ok. We won so we must’ve done alright, I suppose! I enjoyed it a lot and I’m looking forward to the next round.

Harry, who wants to get into local politics after his time at College, continued: “Hannah and I definitely had a good contrast because we’re quite different in our styles and approach. Hannah offered the serious and sincere side of things where I was a bit more comical about the subject.

“That combination was one of the key points that the judges praised about us.”

Hannah, who is in her final year at the College, agreed, saying: “We worked well together, and I thought Harry was brilliant, and really funny. At the time, I thought that we’d lost because I completely panicked when I was doing my speech, but then again, we won, so we must’ve done something right!”

She continued: “It was really challenging but a lot of fun. It was great being around a lot of other people who were interested in debating too.

“The topic of eSports was new to me but it was really interesting to research and find out more. The challenge is to speak passionately about something that I didn’t know a lot about beforehand, but I think that’s what’s really good about debating and getting involved in competitions – you get to research and understand things that you may well not have done before.”