Mr Liam Morgan took a team of 5 top Historians from
Years 10-13 over to Lord Wandsworth College, Hampshire, for the inaugural
History Debate Competition on 27 February. Ollie Riley, Joshua Cuffe, Vita
Paxman, Zach Messer and Kieran Leach had all prepared their arguments, in
preparation for 9 historical debates that were to take place during the day.
The students went up against 3 other teams in a heated head-to-head format.
A difficult and evenly matched round 1 saw Shiplake up
against Reed’s School, debating Hitler’s tearing up of the Treaty of
Versailles. In a close encounter, we edged them out, with 3 of the 4 judges
scoring in our favour. Of the 9 rounds, certain rounds required all teams to
participate. The subject matter for such a round was arguing in which century
it was best to live; fortunately, we drew the long straw and had to argue in
favour of the 20th century. Our team made excellent use of the NHS,
women’s suffrage, living standards and levels of education, to win this debate
comfortably.
By the last, blind round we were scraping the lead. The
final question was ‘what historical benefits do films, TV and books bring to
our modern day analysis of history?’ We were given the medium of television to
argue as the most significant. Ollie Riley opened our debate with a question to
the panel audience; ‘how many of you have watched the news over the past 24
hours?’ The rest of the team sustained a strong argument around how TV was more
important than books for historical analysis. Despite having a weaker factor, the
team argued the case impressively and shaded the debate. Mr Morgan said of the
team that it was ‘seriously impressive; the teamwork and communication
witnessed today made Shiplake a daunting side to be up against and I’m
immensely proud of the way we have handled the competition.’
The nail-biting moment of revealing the winner had
come, and it was very much an open game. The judges deliberated, and we waited
as they added up their scores. After a few minutes it was announced that
Shiplake had triumphed! Next year’s competition has already been planned, to
take place at Reed’s School, and we will be working hard to keep the crown!
