17 minute read
SOCIETIES
from Raven 2022
Abingdon Society
The Abingdon Debating Society has been around for at least 150 years, for there is written evidence that it was responsible for setting up the Raven magazine itself, the first issue of which was in 1884. Yet again, this year the Abingdon Inter-House Competition stretched across two of the School terms, with the final being held in the first week of the Summer Term. In the Lent Term, instead of the Mock Trial Competition, which was still online, the Oxford Schools’ Debating Competition promised at least a final in person and teams of two were offered the chance to compete in online local Southwest heats. Aristo Cham and Justin Wu did extremely well to get to the Finals in Oxford due to success in this local heat online. All this showed the cautious return to normal face to face debates, with the gradual return of mixed year groups both debating and listening in the School itself during the Michaelmas Term.
Inter-House Debating Diary and Results:
1/10/2021 This House no longer relies on America
Barlow v Smythe
25-22
8/10/2021 This House supports a salt and sugar tax
Roberts v Isabella
25-24 15/10/2021 This House supports J.K.Rowling
Smythe v Caverel
22-23
5/11/2021 This House declares that Britain is no longer a Christian country
Barlow v Roberts
23-23
Roberts v Smythe
23-18
19/11/2021 This House believes equality of wealth is the most important kind of equality
Caverel v Roberts
20-20
3/12/2021 This House would rather be a victim
Isabella v Barlow
25-24
21/01/22 This House believes the West is in irreversible decline
Caverel v Isabella
24-25
11/02/22 This House values law more than religion
Barlow v Caverel
23-22
18/03/22 This House believes humans are just another species of animal
Smythe v Isabella
22-22
Final: Between Isabella and Barlow (96 points and 95 points respectively)
This House believes Boris Johnson should resign Barlow (Aristo Cham and Justin Wu) won this debate and the Abingdon Cup
List of House Debaters:
Barlow: Aristo Cham, Justin Wu, Johnny Rowell, Oliver Flynn Caverel: Olivia Malek, Maya Strauss, Anna Hayhurst, Magdalena Pienkowska, Sophia Burton, Stephanie Jedy-Agba, Camilla Francis-Jones Isabella: Edith Jenkins, Bea Garrett, Jessie von der Schulenburg, Leonora van Laar Roberts: Barnaby Sharifi, Joseph Day, Rupert Sharifi, Roman Majendie Smythe: Ambrose Mui, Matthew Stanislas, Oliver Webb, Abdul Akenzua Al-Kareem, Alex Denskevich, Leo Matthews, Ivor Jones
Commentary:
The debates commenced with the topic of America in the aftermath of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the perspective that the presidency of Joe Biden would not heal the apparent deep divisions in American society; it was however before the war in Ukraine and the resurgence of NATO. Here the team that eventually won the competition showed their mettle with Aristo Cham and Justin Wu calmly dissecting a Smythe team that relied too heavily on Ambrose Mui
to make its points about the value of American democracy; there was too much focus on Huawei and industrial espionage, and not enough balance of other points about the value of America in other respects.
The second debate pitted the now hard bitten old timers of Joseph Day and Barnaby Sharifi against a new Fifth Form Isabella team of Edith Jenkins and Bea Garrett; this Isabella team were indeed a revelation, displaying in their first debate a wit and elegance as well as articulate answers under fire from questioning that were nearly a match for Roberts in their final year and showed that they were indeed a team now to be reckoned with even though Roberts still won by a point. Smythe and Caverel went head-tohead over the potentially explosive topic of support for J.K. Rowling, an indirect way of entering the murky waters of biological sex and gender; Caverel plugged away at the transactivist arguments, ultimately successfully, and Smythe were not sufficiently robust in their defence of the author, with insufficient attention to the merits of her view.
Barlow then took on Roberts about the growing question of whether Britain was still a Christian country. Barlow argued for the diminishing role of churches and faith, the emphasis on pluralism, the polls suggesting more none’s than believers. Roberts mounted a somewhat nostalgic romantic defence, emphasising the laws, the status of the Church of England, the role of bishops and morality. The judges felt unable to decide between the two sides, more to do with the highly different approaches, with Barlow clinical in argument but lacking somewhat in the flamboyant rhetorical style of Roberts.
Roberts soundly beat Smythe in the next debate about vaccine passports, with the argument seemingly revolving around what was British and human; Roberts argued for the passport being better than nothing, which ultimately won the day. It looked as though Roberts were cruising towards the final. However, in the next debate Roberts sank themselves without fully realising what they were doing. The debate was on the question of whether equality of wealth was the most important kind of equality, the intention being to look at other kinds of equality by comparison. This happened to some extent, although equality before the law was underplayed; but in the final Roberts’ speech, Roberts putting forward the opposition made the clear suggestion that we were too immature a society to yet have equality of wealth, but that it was indeed the most important kind of equality. Since this was actually arguing for the other side and it was then possible to see their whole argument like a pack of cards collapsing, points awarded were low; and Caverel were unable to seize the moment and missed an opportunity to skewer them with a poorly planned final speech that also lost them the chance to reach the final. In some ways this was the crucial debate for it was Roberts’ last, leaving the field clear for Barlow and Isabella.
The last debates before the final for Barlow and Isabella were relatively high scoring, as both teams now had consistency and keen preparation; the West being in irreversible decline had a strong argument from Caverel facing the paradoxical view that decadence was in fact a sign of the success of the West as well as other elements of vitality; facing Barlow over the issue of law and religion, Caverel
again lost by one point to Barlow due to a very brief final speech indeed; Barlow focused on the dark side of religion; and not enough on combating the good side. Caverel did not tackle the corrupt elements of the law and suggested that since God was perfect, religion must have a lot of good in it. Barlow kept pushing the question of which religion and what God or gods. Neither side really plunged deep enough into the sources of order in society.
The final heat brought the best out of Smythe at long last, with Abdul Akenzua Al-Kareem and Alex Dentskevich providing some very entertaining views about human beings as animals; it was however, too little too late for any further progress towards the final.
In the final itself, which was on the question of Boris resigning, which as I write is still very much an ongoing issue months later, Barlow had the edge in a debate the sides of which were only chosen half an hour beforehand. Barlow won the toss, and took the easier side; Isabella had not sufficient fluency in opposition in attempting to dismiss the character of the PM. It was perhaps too difficult to argue consistently that his character really had nothing to do with his job.
In the end Barlow won through again particularly with the pairing of Aristo Cham and Justin Wu, who also attended the Oxford Schools’ Debating Finals in Oxford and learnt a lot under great pressure as the youngest debaters there, up against the best in the country. The great revelation this year however was the potential within Isabella to take on the mantle of the style that typified Barnaby Sharifi at his best: Edith Jenkins was the most exciting newcomer this year.
I would again like to thank those colleagues who have helped judge the debates particularly Miss Price, Dr Tapia, and Ms Iglesias. I must also thank Ms Rebecca Shaw for heroically taking the Barlow team to Oxford in my place. It was marvellous to welcome back Mr Grinsell to judge the final, which he did judiciously and kindly. Thanks must go to Joseph Day and Stephanie Jedy Agba for being the Chairs this year, both being very reliable and authoritative, and as Head Boy and Head Girl giving each debate a welcome mention at the Hymn Practice assemblies. It was one of the best years overall in terms of quality of debates, with each House fielding a team for every debate and with the Fifth Forms of both Isabella and Barlow offering an exciting prospect for the next couple of years going forward; no doubt Caverel will also be very keen to ensure that for once they can reach a final, having come so close for two years in a row and with a number of able debaters in the Upper Sixth next year.
Hugh Walters Head of Theology & Head of History
Chess Club
During the last few years, we have seen an explosion of interest in chess. The membership of our club has more than doubled in the last year, and we now need to occupy two classrooms to accommodate everyone. The introduction of online platforms, which enabled us to continue playing during lockdowns, has definitely had a positive impact. These have enthused members and crucially enabled them to advance their skills and knowledge independently through the resources they offer freely. Luis Tang (Lower Sixth Barlow) and Patryk Sadkowski (Lower Sixth Roberts) are perhaps
the two pupils who benefitted the most from this and have become some of the best players in our club.
Halfway through the Michaelmas Term, Prior Park College hosted us for our first chess fixture. As far as we could tell, this was also the first match between our schools in their long history. The Academy Hall was a fitting and beautiful place for such an historic occasion. Prior Park visited Downside two weeks later for a second fixture. Mr WatkinsonTrim, who organises the Prior Park Chess Club, said “it was a wonderfully congenial event with pupils playing a total of 19 matches and then sharing dinner in the hall before returning to the college. The event gave pupils an opportunity to revel in the ‘Hogwarts’ atmosphere of the room and the ‘Queen’s Gambit’ ambience of the competition”, referring to Downside and particularly the Petre Library. Although Prior Park won both fixtures, our pupils did well against a team that included two national chess champions, one of which has competed at an international level. A highlight of the second fixture was a match between Patryk and one of the national chess champions. Having lost to her twice two weeks before, she conceded to Patryk this time after a rather intense game that attracted the attention of everyone present.
Another first this year, was the entry of one of our pupils into the Frome Chess Congress, an annual friendly competition organised by the Frome Chess Club, who are affiliated to the Somerset County Chess Association. Over the course of three days, Luis played five games, each lasting about four hours. Luis won three of his games, came third place in his section, and walked away with the Roy Hossell Trophy for being the top Somerset player in the intermediate section. A remarkable first performance in a local competition!
Our annual Inter-House Chess Tournament took place in the Summer Term this year. Most of the matches were held in the penultimate week of the academic year with the final happening on the last Tuesday, as part of our first Giving Day. This is the year where we have seen the biggest number of pupils involved, thanks to the enthusiasm and commitment shown by all six Chess Captains: Luis Tang (Lower Sixth Barlow), Ebanehita Eigbefoh (Lower Sixth Caverel), Pui Yin Huang (Lower Sixth Isabella), Ryan Yuen (Lower Sixth Roberts) and Dylan Chan (Lower Sixth Smythe). At the end of the first stage, where every House plays each other in a total of thirty matches, Roberts secured their place in the final with nine points. Barlow and Isabella came second with seven points each. As Isabella beat Barlow, they qualified to the final, making history as the first girls’ House to reach this stage of the competition. The final of the tournament was an exciting event. Both Houses were evenly matched, as evidenced by the length of all three games. These had to be interrupted so we could all witness Mr Hobbs lie for one minute, in ice-cold water, in the bucket of a tractor after we reached 150 donors during Giving Day. In the end, Roberts won both the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Form games thus claiming the Chess Cup this year.
Knowles Society
The Knowles Society is named after Dom David Knowles (18961974) who was both a Downside monk and Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. ‘A great historian and a master of prose, and a professor and teacher of wide influence. He was also an austere and solitary monk...a very remarkable character who made a deep impression.’ The Society, has as its central purpose, the promotion of ordered discussion by members of the Lower Sixth, based on the lines of a tutorial or supervision at Oxford or Cambridge and was founded in 2001 by the current Head of Theology and then Head of Classics. Membership is by invitation or request.
The Society has always had two members of the academic staff in attendance to offer their ideas and allow pupils to see that adults can also disagree in a civilised manner through dialogue. The Society is currently an academic discussion group for Lower Sixth Formers primarily, which this year met weekly during much of the Lent and Summer Term on a Wednesday evening between 6.30 and 7.30pm to discuss various topics of interest.
Dom Iltyd Trethowan, who ran his own similar group many years ago, regarded 14 as the absolute maximum for any discussion group and this year numbers were limited to more or less this number of invitees. A range of topics and resources were discussed with the pupils and resources were provided by Mr Walters and Mrs Alcantara, who again combined the different disciplines across the Arts and Sciences divide.
The first session, which proved to be the issue many wanted to address, including many beyond those invited, covered the issue of gender dysphoria and the conflict of rights between gender reassignment and members of the female sex, still known by some as ‘women’. This meant examining the Equality Act, as well as discussing the meaning of the word ‘woman’ and the use of gender pronouns. At this point the Equality and Human Rights Commission had not yet delivered their verdict on safe spaces for biological women in hospital wards and other places, and there was a lively discussion surrounding the whole issue of transgender, based on a chapter of Helen Joyce’s book Trans and pieces of legislation as well as a piece from the internet by a group of trans-activists. It was spirited but respectful, and a superb example of what is possible with regard to genuine freedom of speech in action, with opposing views both listened to in an enquiring manner; particularly Maya Strauss and Olivia Malek, who argued from opposing points of view. This discussion in itself seems like an achievement in today’s climate.
The second topic discussed Peter Singer’s exposition of ‘speciesism’ and rights for animals, and a lengthy debate followed on whether there were significant differences between the human animal and other species, and whether there was anything that distinguished us of a quantum kind, or whether we were indeed just one more strand of life in the eco-system; Singer’s controversial view that a human baby has sentience but not personhood, and how this altered our perception of the sanctity of human life in particular. This too produced a spirited discussion.
The next topic was a brief investigation of inequality of wealth, based on The Spirit Level by Wilkinson and Pickett, which argues statistically for less inequality giving better outcomes in all sorts of other ways, especially in health. This led to a request for the following week for a read through of the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Here there was some concern, that at least one member of the group was really rather in favour of the ideas in this document and the discussion ended up revolving around the question of whether there was violence of some kind, class or other, inherent both in human nature or in social relations. With another diversion on immigration, with the realisation that in some way nearly the whole group had very mixed ethnicity indeed in their backgrounds, and what an extraordinarily diverse group it was, the theme of violence continued with the read through of Chapter two of a book by Rutger
Bregman entitled Humankind: a Hopeful History on the fascinating true story of a group of teenage boys from a strict Anglican school being shipwrecked by themselves on a desert island in the Indian Ocean for two years. This was compared with the fictional Lord of the Flies to suggest that perhaps cooperation and order are far deeper rooted than the apparent desire for the strong to gang up against the weak as the most natural default position once the veneer of civilisation has been removed.
The following two weeks witnessed two further investigations of two other masters of the modern mentality, Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud. Darwin’s ideas of survival of the fittest and minute adaptations to the environment were rooted in his own conclusions to the Origin of Species and ably commented upon by Mrs Alcantara. The distinction between science and morality, between other species and human beings, again came to the fore as Mrs Alcantara suggested, apparently quite seriously, that perhaps ants or trees or mushrooms were the most communicative communal types of life.
With Freud it became doubtful whether there was much hard science behind his theories of the self and neurosis, although his psychotherapeutic insights certainly fascinated, it did not convince those brought up on more behaviourist ideas.
Finally, turning to the medieval sanity of Aquinas on living things mediated through the work of Herbert McCabe OP saw a discussion of wholes and parts in living things and the attempt to analyse human beings in terms of symbol making and linguistic animals, communicating and creating something well beyond the other species. Although how much headway these thoughts make in the face of all these other ideas remains an open question.
This Society has undoubtedly taught these members of the Lower Sixth Form valuable skills such as research and debating skills, which will benefit them as they continue their education. It has been an enjoyable experience, and it is thoroughly recommended that ambitious Lower Sixth Formers join the Knowles Society next year; we had one member of the Fifth Form who clearly held her own this year and there was a hard core of regulars who must be praised for keeping up the interest in the life of the intellect beyond the A Level syllabi: Maria Diamond, Maria Materna, Ryan Yuen, Luis Tang, Amalia Schlogel, Pui Yin Huang, Roksana Pieronkiewicz, and the more occasional contributions of Laila Akenzua al Kareem, Thomas Pike and Scarlett Ridge Arianwen Ramruttun, Maya Strauss, Oliwia Malek and Oliver Flynn.
Hugh Walters Head of Theology & Head of History
Model United Nations (MUN)
After almost two years without being able to attend in-person conferences, pupils were excited to take part in the Bristol Grammar School Model United Nations at the start of the Lent Tem this year. Nine pupils from Fifth Form to Upper Sixth attended the conference. They represented the delegations of Ireland and Iran in five different
committees: Security Council (Ireland), Health Committee, Environmental Committee, Special Political Committee and Human Rights Committee. The topics discussed included the issues of deforestation, period poverty and fair elections, as well as the current situations in Afghanistan and Belarus. All nine pupils were fully involved in their committees, and played an important role discussing and amending the draft resolutions put forward on these issues. Downside’s positive contribution was recognised with the following awards: • Joseph Day, highly commended delegate (Ireland) in the highly competitive Security Council; • Barney Sharifi, highly commended delegate (Iran) in the Health Committee; • Maya Strauss, commended delegate (Iran) in the Special
Political Committee (this was
Maya’s first MUN event); • Downside School, highly commended delegation (Iran). The delegation of Iran had four delegates: Oliver Flynn, Amalia Schlogel, Barney Sharifi and Maya Strauss.
We look forward to the next academic year when we will hopefully be able to attend more in-person conferences and continue to rebuild our MUN team.
