On Saturday 12th November, 56 teams of students from schools in Athens and Thessaloniki participated in St. Catherine's 13th Annual Debating Competition! After two years of online competitions, due to COVID, it was great to be able to use our wonderful new school building for the event, an amazing event!

The overall winners of the competition were team Cactus from HAEF. St Cats' highlights were Karl E, who achieved 2nd Best Speaker, Carolina B, who achieved 3rd Best Speaker, and one of our novice teams, Smaragdi C and Dimitra C - finishing joint top of the novice tab.

Special thank you to Mrs Anne Peters and all the team involved in hosting this great event!

Congratulations to all our finalists and participants at the Debate Tournament yesterday for the St Catherine’s Debate Cup!

Well done to winning team Cactus from HAEF!

A few words about our Debate Club...

St. Catherine's Debate Club got off to a dynamic start this year! The relaxation of COVID measures  meant we are now able to accommodate all year groups at our two clubs, and also mix the year-groups - a great way for students to learn from each other! We were also thrilled to welcome to St. Cats our new Coach - Chloe Potamiti. Chloe is a highly experienced debater who has a wealth of national and international debating and coaching experience. 

The Key Stage 3 Club is particularly well-attended. So far they have grappled with such motions as 'This House believes that living in a multicultural world is beneficial' and 'This House believes  that girls face more peer pressure than boys'. The Friday Senior Club, meanwhile, has addressed some standard more advanced  motions like 'The House would ban extremist political parties' and ' This House believes that museums should return cultural artefacts to their country of origin'.    

On Sunday 16th October, six of our older debaters participated in the lengthy selection process for the so-called Development Team Greece, from whom the final team of five will be chosen to represent Greece in the 2023 World Schools Debate Championships. Our very own Carolina B and Karl E were amongst the 14 students selected for the squad!