A team of Bushey students has won glowing praise after narrowly missing out on a national debating prize.

Pupils from Queens’ School earned a creditable second place finish in the in the national final of the Institute of Ideas and Pfizer Debating Matters Competition, winning the school £3,000 worth of books and resources.

The team members have battled their way through each successive stage of the competition, winning a qualifying round in Hertfordshire last year, a one-day regional final in Cambridge and finally making it all the way through to second place at the three day finale in London.

After debating issues including GM crops and bankers’ pay, the team made it through to the final debate on assisted suicide where they were finally defeated by the Durham Johnston School.

Speaking after a hard-fought semi-final debate, Nicholas Hytner, director of the National Theatre and one of the competition’s judges said: “It was very inspiring to see 17 and 18-year-olds engaging deeply and thoughtfully in these issues with one another.

“I think it is essential for young people to think clearly and logically and the Debating Matters Competition is salutary in getting them to do this.”

Other top-name judges at the final included: A.C Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, Anita Anand, presenter of BBC2’s The Daily Politics, Sarah Sands, Deputy Editor of the London Evening Standard and Simon Wessley, Professor of Epidemiological and Liaison Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London.

Proud teacher Kevin Rooney said: “The competition has been an incredibly intense experience. Never mind the students – the intensity of the judges’ questions gave me a sore head. But in many ways, as a teacher, it actually doesn’t get better than this.”

Alex Platts, one of the six Queens’ students who made up the team, added: “Winning and proving yourself in Debating Matters gives a sense of pride and achievement beyond anything I have ever experienced at school.”

The team of six – Aaron Butterfield, Leanne Creasy, Rachel Essam, Robert Griffin, Alex Platts and Jacob Reynolds have won £3,000 worth of books and resources for the school library.

Two students, Jacob Reynolds and Alex Platts, were also both awarded "honourable mentions" by a team of judges scouting for individual talent.