A school in Northwood recently brought 13 schools together to take part in an inter-school Philosothon.
The event hosted by Northwood College for Girls (NWC) gave students the chance to compete in a thought-provoking challenge, taking part in crucial discussions over important issues.
Judged by three highly respected judges Libby Ahluwalia, author of the OCR A-Level textbook, Michael Lacewing creator of the AQA Philosophy A-Level and Alison Allsopp National Training manager for SAPERE, the students discussed justice and existentialism.
The event was organised by NWC’s head of religion, philosophy and ethics, Mr Giblin who said the event was about bringing together the students to discuss and debate the issues at hand.
He said: “The aim of a Philiosothon is not to point score off each other, but to work creatively with ideas as a group. You don’t score points for ‘winning’ a debate, but for your use of reason to question others, your use of collaborative thinking to build on and support ideas, and finally your ability to clearly put forward ideas.”
One Year 10 student Sima said the event was great and it allowed the students to work on a range of skills including their public speaking skills.
She said: “I thoroughly enjoyed the Philosothon. It provided an afternoon of philosophical inquiry and gave us all the opportunity to build our analytical, critical thinking and public speaking skills.”
The winning school was event host, Northwood College for Girls with Christs’ Hospital School in second place and joint third place shared by Watford Boys and South Hampstead.
However, the judges said that all students had exceeded their expectations and everyone agreed that winning really was a secondary aspect to the day with involvement in the Community of Inquiry being the most important.
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