On June 27^th eight Year 12 students from our talented debate team attended the four day European Youth Parliament UK (EYPUK) summer debate session in Liverpool. Upon arrival the students participated in a range of icebreaker activities to familiarise themselves with the topics for each resolution for debate and their new committee teammates. The following day they worked with experienced members from the EYPUK network to write detailed resolutions, declaring the position of their committee and detailing their recommendations for how this issue should be resolved across EU countries. The resolutions included E-Democracy, Linguistic Rights of Regional and Minority Languages, Media Pluralism and the Isolation of the Elderly. A copy of the resolution booklet can be seen in school reception. The delegation spent all day Saturday and Sunday morning debating each resolution, with every delegate being individually judged. The quality of the debates was superb, and all students from our school eloquently articulated their thoughts on the resolutions and contributed to their committee’s debate.

Our students were complimented on their engagement throughout the session; they worked with students from a wide range of schools from across the country and exhibited superb skills in debate. Despite this being the first time Sir Thomas Rich’s made the National Final of the EYPUK debates, two of our students, Natalie Sodzi and Lewis McQueer, were selected from the session to attend international sessions in Germany and Hungary. We are delighted for them and looking forward to supporting more students to participate in the EYPUK sessions in the future.

The debate society in school continues to go from strength to strength and is open to all students year 11 and above. We look forward to welcoming new students next year