Debate Academy VI
From the 19th to the 21st of July nearly one hundred secondary school students and teachers, from as far a field as Dundee, Liverpool and Dover, attended the ESU’s sixth summer Debate Academy.
The students enjoyed an intensive three days of debate coaching at Newcastle-under-Lyme’s Keele University, from a range of ESU staff and university debaters from England, Scotland and Australia.
The training sessions covered a variety of different debating formats including British Parliamentary, World Schools and ESU Schools Mace styles. The students were taught everything from proposition and opposition strategy to how to improve style, in addition to taking part themselves in several debates.
The weekend culminated in an entertaining show debate, fought out between six of the students on the motion that "This House Would Ban Smoking".
England Schools Team has four of the five best speakers in the World
From 4 to 14 July 2006, the World Schools Debating Championships took place in Wales. Cardiff was the largest ever WSDC, with 36 participating countries. The English team of Lizzie Bauer, Kitson Symes, Jamie Susskind and Richard Trainor (coached by James Acton) put in an impressive performance, breaking 7th and reaching the quarter-finals before losing to Ireland. The tournament overall was won by Australia (for the fourth time in a row), who beat Ireland in the final, proposing the motion "This House believes democracy is the best form of government for every nation". It was a strong year for the rest of Britain and Ireland as well, with Ireland, Scotland and Wales breaking 2nd, 3rd and 5th respectively. There were exciting results for England from the individual speaker tab, in which four of the top five speakers were from England. Particular congratulations to Jamie Susskind for being ranked this year's top speaker.
England sent a large judging contingent (including three ESU staff) of Stephen Farrow, Sarah Monroe, Tara Mounce, Debbie Newman, James Probert, Harold Raitt, Trevor Sather and Tim Savin. Everyone very much enjoyed the opportunity to explore Wales (including visits to Welsh speaking schools) and to see debates of an extremely high standard. Applications for next year's team are
now open - with Cardiff replaced as a venue by the rather more distant South Korea.
Queen Mary Mooters win Title for Fourth Time
Queen Mary, University of London were declared champions of the ESU-Essex Court Chambers National Mooting Competition for the fourth time in the competition's thirty four year history, at the Grand Final of the 2005-06 competition on Thursday 29 June.
The semi-finals of the contest took place at Dartmouth House, with teams from Birmingham, Dundee and Oxford Brookes universities competing alongside Queen Mary to win a place in the Grand Final. The University of Birmingham joined Queen Mary in the final, which was held in the President's Court at the Royal Courts of Justice. Following an impressive set of submissions the Queen Mary team was declared the winner by the judging panel comprising Anthony Diamond QC, Bernard Eder QC and Geraldine Andrews QC.
Champions Michael Attenborough and Vijaiya Poopalasingam were duly presented with the National Mooting Competition Mace, with the runners-up receiving the Scarman shield. The four finalists also received cheques and will each be offered a mini-pupilage at Essex Court Chambers.
The ESU would like to thank Essex Court Chambers for its generous sponsorship and support.
ESU works with UK physics team
On 2 July James Probert, Head of the Centre for Speech and Debate, worked with the five members of the team that will represent the UK at the International Young Physicists Tournament in Slovakia between 5 and 14 July. The team, from Shrewsbury School, will participate in 'physics fights' with other national teams, defending a theoretical interpretation of a physical problem and presenting their own research. James helped the team to develop their public speaking and adversarial communication skills in preparation for the competition.
You can find more information about this year's IYPT
here.
