Thank you to all parents and carers who have attended Right Start parent sessions over the past week. Your engagement and support is much valued as we work together to best support your child. My thanks to colleagues who have run the events and ensured the information provided enables parents to best support their children to succeed.

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Two years ago, we welcomed Sir Keir Starmer who wanted to see how we were achieving mass Covid testing on the return to school in Spring 2021. At the end of that visit, we encouraged him to return under better circumstances…and on Monday this week he did!

It was great to welcome Sir Keir Starmer, Bridget Phillipson MP and Darren Rodwell, Leader of the Council LBBD, to the secondary site, joined by the founder of Debate Mate and members of the wider Debate Mate team (as well as a huge entourage of press!) The visit focused on how debating has helped our students develop their oracy skills.

Our visitors worked with our Y11 debating team as they prepared their points for debating the motion, “This house believes that protecting the environment is more important than economic growth.” The debate saw students demonstrate their skills very competently, with Year 9 debaters adding questions from the floor and Nir Amin, SRS and Debate Mate alumnus, beamed in from Harvard University, USA! It was a wonderful showcase of SRS debating talents. Our students received some great feedback from the political leaders, who commented on their clarity, teamwork, confidence and ability to argue their points respectfully of their opponents.

With the debate complete, the focus moved to Q&A in the atrium, with our A Level Politics students firing the questions and having the chance to share their own perspectives on the points being raised.

During one of his media interviews afterwards, Sir Keir said, “This is a fantastic school…”- I’m glad he’s seen what we see!

Huge congratulations to all our young people who took part – you represented yourselves and the school superbly! My thanks to colleagues who have worked to support the development of our debating teams over the years to bring them to the established standard we can see today, with SRS alumni supporting as mentors so that our young people have a sustainable programme for debating which is firmly established in our school.

You will find photos from the day on SRS socials – it really was a great morning for SRS, flying the flag for Barking & Dagenham.

Have a great weekend.

Mrs Cross

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