The Inter-House Debating season started with a debate on AI...

This House believes that artificial intelligence should be subject to government control and regulation.

Flickr album: Inter-House Debating Prelim Round 1 - 25th September 2023 | Height: auto | Theme: Default | Skin: Default Skin

Wellesley House vs Blackford House
The Inter-House Debating started with a very apt motion on the regulation of AI. Wellesley had the harder task of opposing government regulation but both Wellesley and Blackford had prepared well. The arguments were set out clearly and both Houses used Points of Information well. It was probably to be expected that all debaters tended to focus on prepared scripts, but debating styles will develop as we go through the rounds. Special mention must go to 3^rd Former Kitty who did very well to open Wellesley’s debate. The result was a tie and both teams will go forward with increased confidence after this enjoyable first round.
Ian Wilmshurst - Headmaster

Lyon House vs Priory House
In a closely fought first debate of the year, Lyon House played-out an entertaining draw with Priory House. Here, both sides set out clear motions and set about developing ideas with some confidence. Despite some wayward points and a few examples of unwittingly arguing the case for the opposition, both teams came away having learnt an awful lot. As ever, the audience were appreciative of two sides going about their task with courage and conviction.
Mark Hambleton - Head of English

Arion House vs New House
Mr Daws and I were very impressed with the excellent level of debating between Arion and New for the first round of the Inter-House Debating Competition. In terms of style, all six pupils spoke well, whilst they used notes, they were adept at ensuring they had good eye contact as well. They were given feedback on tone, speed and emphasis to work on going into the next debate, which is all part of the process of building on debate performance. The two teams arguments were clear and well defined with Arion using lots of examples to propose their motion, whilst New House cleverly adapted the motion to suggest that AI should be regulated but not by the elected Government. Finally, both teams scored highly on strategy as they gave and answered points of information well and their timings were perfect. The final scores gave a narrow “win” to New House, who opposed the motion. Well done to Ellie, Samira, Leah, Rupert, Seb and James for taking part and giving such a positive start to the debating competition of 2023/34.             
Emily Simper - Deputy Head, Pastoral