News London Online Debating Competition 02.07.2020

Last Monday Godolphin hosted an online debating tournament featuring twenty teams from ten schools, including three from the USA – two from California, and one from Connecticut.

Students debated whether statues of public figures guilty of racism should be taken down, and whether social media companies should be legally responsible for the content of their sites. Godolphin entered two teams, one of which came a very respectable fourth out of twenty. Alastair Couldrey, a teacher at Benenden School, said ‘Our students very much enjoyed debating such topical motions against a wide range of other schools, and with such useful and thorough feedback from judges’. Godolphin student Nicole Simpkins commented, ‘it was exciting debating against students from the US, as they really widened our perspective.’

Godolphin’s Head of English and Debating Julian Bell said ‘Online debating opens up exciting opportunities for collaboration with a wider range of schools around the country, and now the world. I am currently in talks with a school in Los Angeles about the possibility of extending our collaboration further.’