Earlier this year students from Year 9 and 10 were lucky enough to take part in a debating workshop with visiting students from India. When I found out that this opportunity was available I applied straight away since I thought it would be so interesting to be able to interact with international students.
At first many of us were a little nervous about how our skill levels would compare with the visitors, afterall they are travelling from across some continents for this workshop. Once they arrived, they were very friendly and it turned out that they were on a similar level to us which was nice. We were given some warm up activities to get our brains engaged and then went on to start to prepare for actual debates.
Once we were put into mixed teams, it was interesting to see so many ideas and thoughts from people with a different background and perspective! Once we had prepped, there were several debates happening at the same time in different areas. Our motion was to do with tourism – THBT tourism does more harm than good for the environment.
I would definitely hope to apply for this again. We wished the visitors a safe journey back and hope to be able to run another workshop with international students from South America next time!
– Tamara M Yr10
Debating club runs every Friday at lunchtime in the study room for all of lower school and Tuesday after school at Blandford for 6th form students and Yr11.
