Congratulations to Dalloway and Nikita who represented us at the finals of the Oxford Union Debating Competition on Saturday. They took part in four back-to-back debates exploring the following motions:

• ‘This House believes that schools should teach more life skills (e.g. cooking, driving, financial literacy) at the expense of academic subjects (e.g. Maths, Science, History)’
• ‘This House believes that mass tourism does more harm than good in developing nations’
• ‘This House would ban the media from reporting on terrorist attacks in the immediate aftermath’
• ‘This House regrets the emphasis placed on personality in politics’ 

This was a mammoth session of debating which began with a first debate which lasted over eight hours. Dally and Nikita were up against the best schools across the UK, Europe, Africa and Asia and had to take on different roles in each debate with just 15 minutes preparation time before each debate. They managed to win their third match, improving in every round. Well done to Dally and Nikita on being the first Gresham’s debaters to reach the Oxford Finals for at least a decade.