On Friday July 14th Noisy Classroom hosted a Debating Celebration Day at The Beacon School, near Sutton. This event was the culmination of the debating project we have been running in 11 schools across the North Downs Partnership.
Over forty students came together for the celebration day. Teams from local primary schools debated the place of art and music in education and whether every 10 year old should have a mobile phone. Students from The Beacon helped organise the day and judged the competition. After several fierce debates, the winning team on the day came from Tadworth Primary School.
It was a fantastic end to a wonderful project. Every primary school has had two debating workshops, teaching their students the basics of the debating format. Each school also had a staff CPD session on using debating as a pedagogical tool. As a result, staff are now confident in using debating in the classroom and several schools have also set up their own debating clubs.
At The Beacon School, our trainers have offered a variety of workshops for their students. As a result of the debating workshops we ran, The Beacon entered a team into the PiXL Up For Debate competition. Their staff and students have been enthusiastically spreading debating across the region, teaching similar workshops in other local secondary schools. In addition, we ran oracy-focussed Frankenstein masterclasses to really challenge some of the most able students ( See our Lesson plan ). Other students took part in public speaking sessions to help them prepare for the Speaking & Listening requirement of the English GCSE. In the Autumn we will be back at The Beacon offering CPD sessions for staff, to ensure that oracy and debating are really embedded within the school culture and curriculum.
If you are interested in running a similar project in your school, association, or partnership, please email debbie@noisyclassroom.com