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Back to School(s debating?)

  • Issy Fidderman
  • Sep 4, 2020
  • 2 min read

As the back to school season gets underway in this strange new world, a small (but vocal!) group of the school community are also working out how to get school debating clubs back up and running - but how do you run clubs when you can’t meet in person?

Debating has proven that for those already committed to the activity, online competing and training can work - and actually work surprisingly well. But getting in new faces, who are willing to spend a whole day online in their room alone for a competition, might be a little more tricky. Here are our top five tips for getting your debating club going in the COVID-Age


  1. Keep online sessions slightly shorter than you would in person - you don’t get the same downtime in an online class as you do in person so they are more tiring. 

  2. Make your online-classes multi-year: Year group bubbling means that students have fewer opportunities to interact with those outside of their year, and so online debating can be a great opportunity to rectify this. 

  3. Try and use this time to build other skills, like knowledge of current affairs (for example through our new Current Affairs Booster!) that can be done individually and will be really useful for when competitions start back again properly. 

  4. Encourage older students to run small group classes for new, young debaters. As a more senior student, coaching is a great way to improve your argument generation and explanation, and as a new student, it’s more motivating to be in a smaller class - especially online!

  5. Make sure you take advantage of the many wonderful developments that have happened as a result of an increase in online coaching! At CodeBlue, the move online has enabled us to run more projects, and cut costs so that our coaching is accessible  to an ever wider number of students. Check out our new Weekly Debate Clubs or Current Affairs Booster lecture course for some inspiration!


Most importantly, keep debating, and use this time to improve so that when competitions start up again soon, you’re absolutely ready to go!





 
 
 

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