John Redwood

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Dynamic first rounds to the Wokingham Debating Competition

Tuesday and Wednesday last week saw the first two rounds of this year’s Wokingham Schools’ Debating Competition for the John Redwood Cup. The first round at Maiden Erlegh School was very keenly contested with Maiden Erlegh, Bearwood College, Luckley Oakfield and St Crispins battling for a place in the semi final.

 The motions, all concerning environmental issues, were passionately debated by the students with the two teams Scott Pryor, Phoebe Batten and Guy Gillbe, Natasha Adkins from Bearwood College narrowly beating the teams from the other schools.  This is the first time that one school has had two teams in the semi final.

 The second round at the Willink debated the same environmental issues with equal passion and vigour. Natalie Ogilvie and Victoria Scott from the Holt school and Peter Kirwin and Ram Mashru  from the Willink succeeded in winning a place in the semi finals to be held in Committee Room one at Wokingham District council at Shute End.

 Local Member of Parliament, the Rt Hon John Redwood said: “The standard of debating this year is very high indeed. I am delighted that the competition is producing such excellent contributions from the students.  Their research into the subjects has been good and they showed great interest in environmental concerns.  I would like to say a special thank you to our Speaker and three judges who took part in both rounds to ensure continuity. Cllr John Green, Sally Bryant, Richard Crowe and Sue Hipkin gave up a great deal of their time to ensure fair play and I am very grateful to them.  I would also like to thank our sponsors:…..without whom we should not be able to run the competition”.

 The final of the Debating Competition will take place on Thursday 30th November at the Town Hall. All the students who have taken part in the competition will receive a prize from the House of Commons and they will all be invited to take part in a floor debate during the evening.  Tickets are available to the public from Christine Hill on 0118 962 9501.