robert clack debate club

debate club

On Wednesday 29th June 2011 Reece Weaver (Y10), Kelvin Anim (Y10), Katie Allen(Y9) and Diellza Nishori (Y8) took part in the National Debate Mate Cup final at the prestigious Royal Institution of Great Britain.

Through their fantastic efforts on the day they managed to reach the final of the competition which was chaired by Labour MP David Milliband.

The team gave a fantastic performance proposing the motion,“This house believes that children should have a legal obligation to support their parents in their old age”, a job David admitted to the judges was an extremely tall order.

Though they narrowly lost in 4-5 decision in favour of the opposition the team were praised for their excellent structure and precision.

I have no doubt that David was taking notes and took away some of the ideas from our debaters at Robert Clack. Congratulations to all the team for reaching the finals!”

APRIL 2011

Debate Mate Cup

On Thursday the 31st March, The Robert Clack Debate Squad took part in the annual Debate Mate Cup held at the prestigious London School of Economics. Eighteen lucky students were honoured to have been selected for this. There were twelve people in three teams; Robert Clack Turquoise, Reece Weaver, Kelvin Anim, Katie Allen and Diellza Nishori, Robert Clack Red, Andrew Tapson, Folarin Odunubi, Victoria Rayment and Joel Boateng and Robert Clack Purple, Conor Hawes, Esther Musa, Zenaida Anim and Lecita Bowen.

The other six squad members took part in floor speeches, especially, Nathan Curtis, Paul Musa, Ashley Bondera and Callum Marshall-Douglas, supporting the teams incredibly well with their efforts. All teams and floor speakers were equally important in their role to lead Robert Clack in their efforts to win the competition. All three teams made an effort to reach the final, with Robert Clack Turquoise succeeding without losing a single debate in the build up to the final, the Purple team were successful in winning two out of their three debates and the Reds were also successful achieving a draw in their final debate of the day. Robert Clack Purple made it to the final debate of the day for the third year running; unfortunately, they were narrowly beaten by St. Angela’s School during this round. This was a great achievement for two of the finalists, Diellza Nishori and Katie Allen, as this was their first time entering this competition. Honourable mentions should also go to Reece Weaver and Kelvin Anim, who had the highest speaker points of the day.

Finally a big well done to Arbaaz Raza who represented the entire team at the competition by collecting the certificates of entry.

Many thanks to Miss Valentine and Mr McMahon for supervising the pupils who attended.

Hassan Habtoune and Folarin Odunubi

(Year 9 Debate Squad members)

In other debating news, Reece Weaver has been selected to train in the Red Squad for the England Schools team, he will find out in September if he has been successful in becoming a full member of the England Team. Many congratulations to him for this outstanding achievement!

FEBRUARY 2011

For the last three years Robert Clack School has been involved in Debate Mate. This is an organisation that was set up to train students to debate and prepare for university. The organisation sends university students into schools each week for free to aid the students in learning the skills of debate.

Over the course of these three years, Robert Clack has had some major successes, including consistently reaching finals of competitions and debating for the Attorney General at 11 Downing Street last year. However none of these successes can beat Robert Clack’s most recent debating achievements. In December 2010, ten Robert Clack students braved the snow to take part in and win a televised debate at the House of Lords. At this event they were required to debate against four other schools from across the country to determine whether of not there should be a House of Lords reform, a further 10 schools were invited to watch the event and take part in floor speeches.

Due to our previous success in debate, Debate Mate contacted me and asked if Robert Clack would interested in taking part in this prestigious event, which gave the students the opportunity to train with a peer from the Lords and actually debate in the Chamber itself. Knowing my students and their talents and passion for debate I knew that this was an opportunity that we could not miss.

Audrey Boum-Enock and Reece Weaver were selected to lead the Robert Clack team in debating for a Fully Appointed House of Lords. Kelvin Anim, Risan Nishori, Robert Jones, Shekhar Seebaluck, Victoria Rayment, Funda Osman, Sam French and Alex Baker, completed the team who were outstanding in supporting our main speakers with articulate and exciting floor speeches.

Over the course of two weeks our debaters worked together to prepare their winning formula. Lord Norton attended a meeting with the students at school to explain the role of the peers and the benefits of having a fully appointed house. The next stage of their training was delivered by Ben McNelly a Debate Mate mentor, who helped the students prepare and structure their arguments. The final training session was held a week before the event at the House of Lords, where Ben and Lord Norton went through the structure of the day and helped our students finalise their debates.

On the 11th December 2010, our students made their final journey to the House of Lords to deliver their winning speeches. The preparation and effort made by each student was evident throughout, Audrey, a Year 11 student and Reece, Year 10, the youngest speaker in the whole competition, spoke with ease and confidence. They were both assured in their arguments and took command straight away. When the floor speeches took place it was clear that Robert Clack were in a strong position, almost every other school that attended the event were backing the arguments put forward by Reece and Audrey.

Each school invited to the event were asked to judge the debates.

Robert Clack had a landslide victory. They won the event with a vote of 82, with their nearest competition receiving just 46 votes.

The Robert Clack team were outstanding during the build up to and at the event itself. They have yet again proved to be fantastic ambassadors to the school as well to the Debate Mate organisation.

Miss Valentine

debate club and model U.N.

July 2010:

On Thursday & Friday 8th & 9th July, eight Robert Clack pupils took part in the annual London Model United Nations conference on ‘Global Health’ at Mulberry School in Whitechapel. In Model UN, pupils participate in simulations of official United Nations proceedings. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace. In Model UN, each pupil represents a particular nation within their committee. At the Mulberry School conference, the pupils were intent on creating resolutions to improve health conditions on a global level. Robert Clack pupils represented UN member nations South Africa & Turkey.

Picture One

Twenty-five schools took part in the conference, coming from as far away as Israel. At the conclusion of the conference, the Robert Clack pupils were recognized for their excellence in diplomacy and performance and were presented with the ‘Secretary General’s Award for Best Delegation’ for the second consecutive year. The participating Robert Clack pupils are deserving of much praise for the manner in which they prepared for, and ultimately performed in their respective committees. They represented our proud school community exceptionally well, employing strong skill in the areas of communication, leadership, diplomacy, cooperation and creativity. Several Robert Clack pupils were recognized for outstanding performances within their committees. Kelvin Anim received ‘honourable mention’ for his efforts while Audrey Boum-Enock & Shekhar Seebaluck earned ‘best delegate’ honours in their respective committees. Joel Boateng, Hassan Habtoune, Paul Musa, Folarin Odunubi & Reece Weaver also performed extremely well and are deserving of positive recognition.

This article was featured in our April 2010 newsletter:

The month of March has seen the Robert Clack debate club thrive further. The first team continued their success at the Urban Debate League by winning one of their debates at the competition. This leaving them in good stead to win the final competition.

DEBATE CLUB AT 11 DOWNING STREET

Not only does the Robert Clack debate team flourish at competition level, they continue to shine as ambassadors for the Debate Mate organisation. On the 22nd March Reece Weaver, Audrey Boum-Enockand Nyasha Hove were invited by the Attorney General to take part in a show debate at 11 Downing Street. Reece and Nyasha took centre stage in the actual debate, whilst Audrey supported the boys with an outstanding floor speech. All three pupils were fantastic representatives of the school, which was echoed by Debate Mate, the Attorney General and Maggie Darling, the Chancellor's wife.

The Debate Mate programme closes on 22nd April with the annual Richard Koch Cup being held at the London School of Economics. This year we will be entering three teams in the competition along with a 30 strong squad. Mr Staino and I are looking forward to seeing all of our teams being successful and hopefully bringing the cup to Robert Clack.

Miss Valentine

The school is exceptionally well led and managed by an outstanding and tireless headteacher and a particularly strong senior team. There is a shared sense of purpose that focuses on learning and students. Roles and responsibilities are well-defined and professional development opportunities have further enhanced the effectiveness of managers and teachers at all levels.

School self-evaluation is accurate, inclusive and rigorous, resulting in ambitious target setting and improvement planning. Middle leaders throughout the school understand their roles in improving the school's performance; consequently, standards have continued to rise over the past three years, and in some aspects, the rate of improvement has been rapid.