Domremy Ethics Club

The Ethics Club is a co-curricular opportunity for students in Years 10-12. We have our largest membership so far at Domremy this year with over 30 students participating. We are looking forward to meeting each fortnight to discuss a broad range of ethical theories, frameworks and dilemmas as we work towards becoming more open-minded, knowledgeable and understanding of different perspectives.

Each year, we take part in the Ethics Olympiad – an international competition, held for students aged 12-18 years. This competition provides 16 cases for consideration and discussion each year. We have two Senior teams and two Middle School teams participating in the 2025 Olympiad.

This week, a group of Year 10 & 11 students took part in a training workshop to learn about the Olympiad. Below is an article about the day from two of the participants, both of whom are new to the event.

2025 Senior School Training Day

This week, our school participated in the Senior School Ethics Olympiad Training Day; a virtual meeting presented by Matthew Wills, the founder of the Ethics Olympiad. We started the day off by introducing ourselves and a discussion on broad ethical issues before diving into various workshops and case studies.

Mentors including Dr Archie Stapleton kindly assisted us and with slides on how to efficiently take notes to help us perform better in competitions. The professors taught us about counter arguments, how to speak properly and how the whole discussion works, such as, speaker positions, how it will be graded and how we can look at other people’s perspectives and to be open towards their views and opinions, without putting their beliefs down. We learned to be open-minded and that two opinions can coexist and even be correct.

Throughout the session, we explored some complex moral dilemmas including cases about robot love, midnight curfews, tobacco bans, the consumption of dog meat and Spotify surveillance. We also considered the question “What, if anything, is morally wrong with Fast Fashion”? These discussions challenged us to think critically about different perspectives and about how we can be open to different viewpoints. We learnt many new phrases and key terms to help us discuss with other students on how to make preparations for the upcoming tournament and for future ethical discussions. 

The Ethics Olympiad Training Day was definitely an eye-opening experience which we would gladly participate in again.

Janice and Sophie (Year 10)

Ms Sarah Thompson, Leader of Innovative and Global Connections