Did your school have a debate team? Or was it a normal, non-posh school and just a football team, and maybe a netball team for the girls?
17 year-old Ife Grillo goes to Bridge Academy in Hackney, east London, which has 54% of pupils on free school meals, and 44% of pupils don’t speak English as their first language. But that hasn’t stopped him being picked for the Team England national debate team, to compete at the World Schools Debating Championships and face teams from all over the globe. The other four team members are all from private schools like Eton, Dulwich College and Westminster, and private school kids normally dominate the team.
Well done, Ife.
Ife has managed to get there thanks to Debate Mate, an organisation that helps kids from schools with above average Free School Meals rates, and “tackles educational disadvantage” by getting them involved with debate competitions. He’s previously beat Eton students in debates, and has been a youth MP for Shoreditch. “Finding out I made the England Team was one of the best days of my life. Debate Mate getting involved in my school absolutely changed my life and I owe them a lot," he told Huffington Post UK. “Debating is very private school dominated, and by extension there are very few ethnic minorities. The reality is that that is often how things are at the top of any profession, and it taught me that sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone to reach success.”
Debate Mate CEO and founder Margaret McCabe added: “We’re really proud of Ife, we’re really proud of all our kids," said. "I set up Debate Mate to create social mobility with real impacts. Now we teach 6000 children a week.”
[via Huffington Post]
