A fun and interactive workshop that combines multiple practice debates and a range of theoretical sessions to help high school students further flourish as debaters.
Student to Teacher Ratio 9:1Allow experienced students to practice their skills in debates on a range of topics.
Provide theory sessions on multiple topics, tailored to the interests and needs of the particular group.
Give students plenty of opportunities to present and receive individualised feedback.
Register your interest for our upcoming Holiday programs.
Bookings for the Winter Workshops opening in late May – Register your interest to join the fun here!
Debating is one of those skills that is genuinely hard to master. There is a lot happening in a debate – meeting burdens, keeping to a team strategy, tackling the other team’s arguments – and it takes lots of training and practice to really get your head around it all.
Our Experienced Debating program seeks to help students grapple with all these concepts and more. Taking a student-centric approach to learning, our coaches are given a wide repository of material, and are able to pick and choose which lessons and activities will best suit the students. When combined with a number of practice debates on a range of different topics, students are able to start piecing together the enigmatic puzzle that is high school debating.
Importantly, we make sure that all classes are kept small, light-hearted and non-competitive – we want to ensure that all students feel welcome and are able to develop as a debater at their own pace.
During the upcoming holidays, we will be offering many of our workshops both in-person and online.
For the most part, there is very little that separates our online and physical programs – both are interactive, cover the same theoretical concepts, and give students a range of opportunities to practice and develop their skills. Whilst some activities are different between the two, as some activities lend themselves better to physical or online classes, the actual learning outcomes remain the same for both classes.
Importantly, the timing of each workshop does differ:
Notably, the difference in price between each isn’t an indication of the quality of the program, or how much students will get out of the experience – both get the same amount of attention and care, and we’ve found some students develop better in an online environment. The deviation instead is simply a result of the higher costs (such as venue hire, administrative staff and sanitation) associated with running classes face-to-face.
If you’re interested in learning more about how our online programs work, please check out the video below!
Whilst children appear to not be at particularly high risk from COVID-19, SSA places their safety (and the safety of our coaches) as our highest priority. This emphasis on safety is the first tier of our teaching policy.
We generally consider the risk of transmission at our programs to be very unlikely. This is for three reasons:
We have prepared our COVID-19 Action Plan, which outlines the three methods we are using to keep students safe.
Whilst you are very welcome to read the Action Plan in full, the four elements are:
Additionally, we will also be continuing to offer online programs for the foreseeable future. This will help ensure that parents and students who are uncomfortable with physical classes have an alternative that allows them to feel safe, whilst still receiving a quality education in public speaking and debating.
Please check out our COVID-19 Action Plan here, or get in touch if you have any questions!
Our Experienced Debating workshop is an experienced level program.
Designed for students with formal coaching in debating, we recommend that students only enrol if:
Importantly, debating and public speaking are very different skills – attending a public speaking program with us, or participating in a public speaking program at school, doesn’t really prepare students for this workshop – they would be better off giving our Foundations of Debating program a try.
If you’re not sure whether your child would be better suited for our Foundations of Debating or Experienced Debating program, please get in touch and we would be more than happy to discuss it with you!
Over the duration of the Experienced Debating program, students will:
Given the modular nature of the Experienced Debating program, there is no strict timetable that coaches are required to follow – that said, students can generally expect to:
Students will also be exposed to a range of debating related activities. These will help them develop their confidence and impromptu speaking skills, whilst at the same time ensuring that they have an enjoyable experience at the program!
Our classes vary in size every holiday depending on how many bookings we receive – however, the maximum size of our Experienced Debating classes is 9 students with one coach, and 16 students with two coaches.
If there aren’t any spots left, it’s usually because we’ve hit capacity – please get in touch with us and we’ll see what we can do about either opening an extra class, fitting your child into the existing class, or putting you on a waitlist in case any students pull out!
After each Experienced Debating program (which can be repeated indefinitely), students will go home with:
My daughter had a brilliant time - partly due to the rapport with the fabulous staff - and it is a great concept for kids to develop their skills!
The teacher made sure every student felt encouraged and everyone participated equally, she asked questions and split roles for the debates equally!
After our Summer 2021 programs...
Students had fun
Students felt their argumentation improved
Students believed their manner improved
Students thought their speech structure improved