In March, four teams of Year 10 students from Westcliff High School for Boys travelled to Cambridge University for the East of England Regional Round of the International Competition for Young Debaters (ICYD), a prestigious competition hosted jointly by the Cambridge and Oxford Unions. Intense and closely-fought, the debating took place all day with teams from schools across the Eastern Region taking part and tackling challenging and, at times, controversial motions.

Although the team members were new to competitive debating, they rose to the challenge admirably, with one team just pipped-to-the-post in terms of reaching the Regional Final. Notable performances, in terms of individual Speaker Points awarded, came from Edward, placed sixth, and Elliot, an impressive runner-up in second place overall. Congratulations and well done to Elliot, Edward, Peter, Thanosh, Sai, Aariyan, Hugo and Shadman, and our thanks to Dr Platts for preparing the teams.