This year, the Sixth Form revived the Cokethorpe Model United Nations Team, which had been in abeyance since before the pandemic. Students, Joe (Upper Sixth, Queen Anne), Rachael (Lower Sixth, Feilden), Iman (Upper Sixth, Queen Anne), Charlotte (Lower Sixth, Gascoigne), Gabriella (Lower Sixth, Harcourt), Tara (Lower Sixth, Harcourt), Rafi (Lower Sixth, Vanbrugh), Dylan (Upper Sixth, Vanbrugh), Ben (Upper Sixth, Swift), Rohana (Lower Sixth, Queen Anne), James (Lower Sixth, Swift), and Marit (Lower Sixth, Feilden) participated in the Oxford Global Model United Nations Competition, which pitted them against schools from across the UK, as well as countries as wide ranging as France, Germany, India, Peru, and China.
Most teams spent a year or more preparing for this competition, where delegates must be able to use diplomatic negotiating skills to communicate their well-researched solutions to global problems. Our delegates competed against each other and 92 other delegations on the Disarmament and International Security Committee. While all our delegates did extremely well, building and leading coalitions, delivering 90-second impromptu speeches, negotiating solutions, and using parliamentary procedure, special recognition should be given to Rafi (Lower Sixth, Vanbrugh) who, out of the 104 delegates present, was given the award for Outstanding Delegate—the equivalent of second place—in this competition. We are already looking to future competitions, in the UK and abroad and will be expanding the programme to include the Fifth Form.