Emmbrook triumphs in the Wokingham Schools Debating Competition

Emmbrook School has walked away with the John Redwood Cup for debating for the second year in a row, following the hotly-contested final of the Wokingham Schools Debating Competition on Friday the 28th November at Wokingham Town Hall.

After a hard fought contest on the subject of “This House believes the Government has created the credit crunch”, Adam Connell and Florence Curtis of the Emmbrook narrowly defeated Lawrence Hill and Dominic Murray-Vaughan of the Willink. The teams had previously debated issues such as house prices, climate change and energy prices, and education over three rounds of debating in October and November.

Adam Connell and Florence Curtis have therefore secured for the Emmbrook School the John Redwood Cup for the second year running, as well as an overhead projector kindly donated by 3M. In addition, all four finalists will receive a day at the Houses of Parliament with John Redwood, where they will have lunch and get the opportunity to see Prime Minister’s Questions live from the viewing gallery. The other participants from St. Crispin’s, the Holt, Luckley Oakfield, Padworth and Maiden Erlegh all received prizes from the House of Commons gift shop and certificates for their participation in the contest.

Speaking about the competition, John Redwood said: “After two months of hard-fought debate we now have our winners. I would like to congratulate Adam Connell and Florence Curtis for winning the contest for the Emmbrook for the second year in a row.”

“The judges had a very difficult job all the way through the contest and the standard of debating amongst all the participants was very high.”

“I am pleased that we are able to provide this opportunity for Wokingham pupils to hone their public speaking and debating schools, and give them the opportunity to develop important skills for the world of business and politics.”

The final of the contest was judged by Sally Bryant from the Wokingham Times, Donald MacDonald from the RBS, and Ian Graham from Clifton Ingram, and was sponsored by generous donations from RBS, Classicstone Properties, Bill Clark, Clifton Ingram, 3M and Ticheners.

For more information, including photographs of the winning team for media purposes, please contact Carl Thomson on 020 7219 4205