Debate Dubai

In early December, 24 students from St Chris formed six teams to take part in a Debating Tournament ‘Debate Dubai’ at Jumeirah College, Dubai. The tournament comprises of three categories: 14 and Under, 16 and Under and the Open Division. The School entered two teams under each category. Debate topics included ‘This House would allow employers to refuse employment to smokers’ and ‘This House would not grant developing countries the right to host major international sporting events’. In addition to motions that were prepared in advance, there were also several impromptu rounds that were challenging as the students only had half an hour to prepare their arguments and speeches. The standard was incredibly high, and the St Chris students did the School proud by winning most of their debates in the first three rounds, which meant that they were in one of the top two seeded groups in each category for the Quarter-Finals. Sadly, they were all knocked out after the Semi-Finals, but nevertheless they should be proud of all reaching this stage of the competition. This is especially the case as this was the first time that many of them had ever competed in this kind of tournament. The day was fun but very long – it began at 06:00 and we did not land in Bahrain until past midnight. The students worked very hard all day and should be very proud of all they achieved and learned. James Harper and I would love to see them compete again in such a competition.