have depth in our Society. It’s not just one member being successful. It’s a number of students from a range of different backgrounds learning debating and realising that they can be good at it.’ Sayeqa is no stranger to success herself: a world-renowned coach, she has trained both the New Zealand and Indian National Teams. Her own illustrious debating career saw her named as the Best Speaker at the Australasian Debating Championships. Dulwich debating in its most recent form began in 2000 when Dr Farrow, an English Teacher, took it upon himself to offer the activity to students at the college. Since then it has grown substantially and gained a dedicated coach, Sayeqa, and more than 20 active debaters. Meetings take place twice a week and focus on training. These sessions usually begin with a talk on a relevant topic such as ‘The Ukraine Crisis’ and progress to a debating exercise like ‘rebuttal tennis’ (where we take turns rebutting each other’s arguments) and culminate in a fully-fledged debate. Tom O’Reilly, who left Dulwich in 2008 to study at Oxford, but who was an active member of the debating society, is sure that the rigour instilled by these meetings has made the teams as good as they are. ‘Debating doesn’t happen magically. Standing up and speaking in front of your peers on an unfamiliar subject can be a little overwhelming, but training rapidly increases your eloquence and confidence.’ With this level of success over the past two years, we wondered if Dulwich had any room to improve or whether we were in fact witnessing the Golden Era of Dulwich debating. Sayeqa is emphatic: ‘NO! I have great hopes for the future of Dulwich debating. Every single week I see Year 9s and Year 10s turn up for four hours of debating sessions. Beyond these, they watch debating videos at home and often send me things they have read and feel could be applicable to debating. To see them working as hard as the Year 12s and Year 13s, most of whom will compete at international level, gives me complete faith that this is the very beginning of what Dulwich can achieve. We have only touched the surface.’ Most of these debaters would tell you that the increased confidence from debating has improved and transformed their lives in many ways. Debating offers students something unique: the opportunity to speak and argue in front of an audience on a weekly basis. For some, this may seem more daunting than rewarding and Sayeqa says that for most debaters ‘it
seems terrifying but it can also be exciting.’ She said she thrived on the challenge. After all, as Tom says, ‘it takes enormous courage to stand in front of your peers or complete strangers and deliver a speech, which was something I had never done before.’ Another aspect of debating that benefits students is the intensity of preparation. Before every debate you are given a motion – often one you have never considered before, such as ‘This House would place quotas for racial minorities in national sports teams’ – and 15 minutes to prepare for a five- minute speech. This might seem easy enough; but in this brief time period, which includes getting to the debating room, you need to think about a lot more than you would expect. Let’s say you were in favour of this motion – putting in place racial quotas. What level of quota would you choose? A fixed proportion corresponding to population, or one above the proportion to promote minorities? What would you deem as a minority and how would you implement the quotas? What would be your main arguments? What would you expect from your opposition? The questions continue and by this point your time might already be over. So debating forces you to think of arguments on your feet, ensuring you structure your ideas and arguments quickly. As a result of this, debaters think succinctly, argue well and speak eloquently. In an interview setting,
“Debating offers students something unique: the opportunity to speak and argue in front of an audience on a weekly basis.”
where you will be challenged with a range of tough questions, the benefits are huge. In terms of university applications, Sayeqa notes that ‘we have had a very strong correlation between students who have experienced Dulwich’s debating programme and students who achieve places in the top universities of the UK’. In fact, the success rate of Dulwich debaters who have applied to Oxbridge over the past six years has been 100 per cent, in subjects ranging from Computer Science and Biology to Music and PPE. Tom goes so far as to say, ‘I don’t think I’d have got into Oxford without debating. I don’t think I would have had the confidence to apply, nor the academic rigour to pass once I got there.’ Among the current generation, Louis Collier will be studying Physics at Oxford and Will Cook PPE, also at Oxford.
10
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker