debating Club & more this week

Debating Club

For several years, Mr Warnes has run our successful UGS Debating Club, a fantastic extracurricular opportunity for the students, and he's delighted to have welcomed many new participants this year.

The students are pictured above at this week's meeting, where the debate in hand centred on banning the use of mobile phones in schools, and here Mr Warnes tells us more:

We meet every week at lunchtime in the Conference Room. Students are taught the skills required to succeed in British Parliamentary Debating: the most popular style of intercollegiate debating in the world. 

Debating helps students to develop both public speaking and critical thinking skills that are highly thought of by both universities and employers. It is also a lot of fun! 

Every year, students from UGS compete in debating competitions with some of the best schools in the country. Over the years, we have competed in a range of competitions at some of the most prestigious universities in the country. 

We recently won the Lancaster School's Debating Competition, for example, and we succeeded in getting to the Final Day of the Oxford Schools' contest.

In an update (9/2/24): four of our KS4 students: Conan, Laurie, Ben and Oliver, competed at Manchester Grammar School this week against much older students. Mr Warnes reports that although they sadly did not get through to the next round, they had a great experience.

Well done and we look forward to sharing updates on the Debating Club's progress throughout the coming year!

Also this week in school:

As we have already shared, there have been a great many events taking place in a phenomenally busy week (please see the separate new articles), but a further session on strategies for Success for Year 11 was also delivered on Wednesday.

And next week brings still more:

MFL trip to Munich

National Apprenticeship Week activities

Visiting speaker on careers in Veterinary Science

A cohort of our students will be visiting Altrincham Boys Grammar for the launch of the Trafford School's Anti-Racism Alliance

Biology Olympiad

House Charity Valentine's Bake Sale

Watch this space for updates!