Starting a Debate Club in School

 

We are often asked about setting up a Debate Club at school so we have included some of the most frequently asked questions below to help you get started!

Debate Hub currently has several resources for helping to run a club, including lesson plans for skills development, various games packs, advice on how to set up and judge debates, and over 400 motions to give you some ideas on how to structure your club. You can also listen to the Debate Hub podcast episodes: The principles of a running a great debate club (parts one and two) for a further breakdown on continued development of the club.

 

How often should our club meet? – As regularly as possible. While there will be times when some students will not be able to come to every session (and that’s completely fine), you’ll best avoid confusion if there is a consistency to when the club is held. Every week is preferable but if this isn’t possible, having fixed dates of when the club is happening that is easily accessible to the students is what we would recommend.

Lunchtimes or after schools? – Why not both? There are pros and cons to running only one type of Debating session at these times. With lunchtimes, the limited time for an activity and the students eating means you can probably only do a Debate with some feedback (and that means you’ll get the students involved more immediately as they’re almost guaranteed to make some speeches each week). With after school sessions, you can make them longer and therefore more varied. You can still do practice Debates, but you can also do skills development sessions and games. Often you can do both with the session time. This is where the students who want to learn more will benefit more. If you can only prioritise one timeslot, after schools allowing more variety and coaching time is preferable, but both is most optimal.

What should the main focus of the club be? – Fun! There will be plenty of time later down the road to become a competitive club. Starting out, you want people to come regularly and enjoy being there. Play games, set engaging and relevant motions to them, and be encouraging of their ideas and contributions.

Should I focus the club more towards the gifted students that I think would be good in Debating? – No! Gear the club towards anyone and everyone who would like to join. A lot of students will surprise you with how much they take to the sport! It’s also important to ensure that all levels of students are given a chance, especially as the ones who struggle academically are the most in need of access to developing other skill sets.

What about age range? Should I start with 6^th Form and work my way down? – If anything, it should be the opposite way around. There definitely should be sessions aimed for older and younger students so that not only can you manage nerves and concerns between the groups (such as ‘but I don’t want to engage with little kids’ or ‘but they’re older than me meaning they’ll just beat me’) but it also means you can set different types of motions for each age set. If you only have time to start out small, start out younger! It will be a lot easier to build a consistent Debating Culture within the school if they start young and then are able to carry those skills throughout their entire school life.

Any fun strategies on how we can announce/advertise the club? – You could always advertise the motion you’ve chosen for the first session. Give them an idea of what to expect as well as some prep time. Once they’re in, you can then set the expectation of how much time to prepare they’ll usually have. One fun thing you can do is organise some Show Debates. This is a great chance to show people what is involved in the club. Some of the most successful ones we have seen is where we have members of staff also take part.

I have never spoken in a Debate in my life. Will that be a problem? – Absolutely not! This is the other argument for why starting out with younger students is the best strategy. The main thing that younger Debaters need is reinforcement of their idea generation as well as adhering to basic structures. These are quite easy things for an educator’s mind to grasp and follow through on before ever having to engage with competitive strategy. Many of the top educators in Debating in the country only started engaging with the game when they decided to run a club. So long as you’re bringing enthusiasm and a willingness to learn, that’s all you’ll need to start out. Once the club is more fully formed, then maybe you can look at getting in a coach, but it is not necessary in the early stages.

Debate Hub will also be publishing details about our Easter and Summer Camps for 2027 so keep watching this space!