The Meeting of Minds

On Saturday 13 April, young debaters from all over Bahrain met at the inaugural Bahrain National Inter-School Debating Tournament hosted by St Christopher’s School, for a day of hard work and achievement. The purpose of this event was to raise the profile of competitive debating in the region and to help students prepare for other public speaking events such as MUN or the World Schools Debating Championships. In the weeks leading up to this prestigious national event, the teams had been working non-stop  to research and perfect their arguments. Four practice workshop sessions were also held at St Christopher’s to introduce the style of debating to schools.

 In total, St Christopher’s hosted 101 debates, 53 of them on the day of the tournament. The ability to debate is an extremely important life skill because it teaches persuasion, improves confidence in public speaking, and explores a variety of international topics in-depth to trigger interest and discussion.  By the end of the tournament, we had discussed important world issues from a wide range of topics – education, the environment, the economy and politics.

Participating schools were: The Sacred Heart School, The Pakistan School, The Indian School, The British School of Bahrain, The New Millennium School and St Christopher’s School. The winner of the Senior event was The British School of Bahrain; runner-Up, St Christopher’s School. Both the winner and the runner-up for the Junior Section were from St Christopher’s School.

Mr Milnes who organised the tournament provided us with the opportunity to interact and learn with debaters from all over the country. – Riva Kapoor 8F