Oxford Schools' Debating Competition 2023

Run by the Oxford Union, Oxford’s Schools’ is the largest British parliamentary high school-level debating competition in the world, hosting over 800 international teams in their regional rounds. CLC was allocated two team slots in the regional rounds hosted on Friday 3rd February, and Meagan (SFC1 / Year 12) and I were selected as a team to represent our school.

On the day of the tournament, we set off to St Edward’s, Oxford – the host school for this regional round. Surprisingly, we faced off one of their teams in the first round, with the motion, ‘This house would abolish private schools’. Meagan and I were randomly allocated the position of Closing Government (CG), and had argued why private schools are inherently discriminatory in their nature, and why their existence would only further perpetuate social inequality in the long run.

The second motion was perhaps even harder – ‘This house would not provide development aid to countries who routinely violate human rights’. We were allocated the position of Closing Opposition (CO), which meant we had to defend why providing development aid to these countries brings more harm than good. We chose to strategically focus on the stakeholder impact on vulnerable people living in these countries, and argued how only our side is able to bring them a better quality of life under the oppressive regime.

Overall, this experience was extremely beneficial and every debate of the night was fruitful and of a high level. The preparation time for each motion was only 15 minutes, and devices were prohibited, so some quick thinking and analytical skills were required.

Our hard work ultimately paid off, and our team ranked third in the entire regional round, securing CLC a spot in the finals next month, which will take place at the historic Oxford Union. This was such an invaluable experience, and I feel honoured to be representing College in the finals soon!

Valerie, SFC1 (Year 12)

Deadlines and Reminders