Sunday dawned a little overcast at Queens, but that didn’t dampen anyone’s excitement for the coming day. For the past few days, our debate team have been busily working away at their speeches and yesterday we got to see all these efforts come together!

After a blissful lie-in, our debate team gathered together for a final run-through of their speeches before the Great Debate kicked off in the afternoon. Meanwhile, our other students must have caught the studious bug from them because many of them settled down to put in some work on their presentations or group projects. 

Lunch was a little quieter than usual as a mild case of nerves swept over the students. But as students arrived at the debate’s setting – The Sheldonian Theatre – the nerves were soon swept away by excitement.

As the debate motion was “this house believes the robots are taking our jobs”, it was only fitting that the guest speaker was Jason Bradbury, ex-presenter of The Gadget Show. He gave a fascinating opening speech on the differences between humans and robots which did a great job of setting the stage for the first speaker.

Though public speaking can be very nerve-wracking, our students all spoke confidently and eloquently, making excellent arguments. It was a very proud moment for the staff and everyone thoroughly deserved their enthusiastic applause!

The evening was a welcome chance to relax and wind-down after such an intense day. Some students set up games of football or table tennis outside while others took a comfy seat inside to watch a film.