Pinsent Masons Debating Competition 2024: Marking a decade of debate!

November 2024 marked a decade-long partnership with Pinsent Masons, where we delivered our annual Debating Competition for Year 10 students! Seven schools took place across East London to compete against each other on Friday 29th November at Pinsent Masons head offices in central London. 

To prepare them for the debate, each school team participated in a workshop where they learnt to develop their debating skills with the help of our experienced volunteers from Pinsent Masons and their partners, including Tesco, Government Legal Department, RSA Group, bp, Fujitsu, and Currys. 

This year’s participating schools included Little Ilford, Eastlea Community School, Rokeby School, Eden Girls School, Norlington Boys School, Lister Community School, and St Edward’s Academy. The competition was fierce, with schools facing off on a variety of engaging and timely topics. Each school prepared their arguments either for or against, and the debate topics included offshore drilling, facial recognition technology, the impact of social media on mental health, and the implementation of gender-neutral bathrooms in schools.

After the debates had taken place, the judging panel decided that the two finalists to compete in the final debate were Lister Community School and St Edward’s Academy. The final motion that they had to debate was “Juries in trials of young people should be made up of young people”. 

The judges were pleased to announce that the final winner of the 2024 Debating Competition was St. Edward’s Academy! Not only were the winning students presented with their trophy and certificates, but they were granted £1000 to use towards future debating activities in their school.

A huge congratulations to all the schools who took part in the competition!

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