Course Overview

Bookings are closed for Term #4 – register your interest to join in 2025 here!

Key Features

Runs over weekly two-hour sessions
Designed for experienced Year 7 – 9 debaters
Builds on the foundations laid in Debating Pandas
A modular program where coaches determine content based on the needs and interests of students in the class
Helps students grapple with more complex concepts, such as meeting burdens, keeping to a team strategy and tackling the other team’s arguments
Provides students with lots of opportunities to practice and continue to develop their debating skills
Prioritises a supportive and welcoming learning environment for all students that is light-hearted and non-competitive
Class sizes are kept small so that each student can be provided with maximum support and attention

Term Focuses

Debating Club is modular in nature and has no particular focus in any given term.

Instead, it provides students with various opportunities to practice their debating skills and supplements this with theory sessions (and debriefs) that provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to develop even further.

More Information

Discover how our in-person and online programs differ on our FAQs
Learn more about the SSA Credits & Refund policy
Find out more about the type of things students cover in our blog

Our Debating Club course is an experienced-level program for Year 7 – 10 students.

Designed for students with formal coaching in debating, we recommend that students only enrol if they have:

already completed at least one term of Debating Club, and would be interested in continuing – given Debating Club is modular in nature, the content of two programs is never the same;
completed multiple terms of our Debating Pandas program and has been recommended to advance by their coach;
completed our Debating Hawks or Practice Debates holiday workshop and has been recommended to take Debating Club by their coach;
received extensive formal debating training with another provider; or
attended a school with a comprehensive debating training program and competed in several interschool debates.

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 prepare students for this workshop. Instead, they would be better off giving our Debating Club program a try.

Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss what’s best for your child!

Over the course of the term, students will have the opportunity to:

revise essential theory about policy-based (‘should’) debates and take their understanding to the next level;
deploy what they have learned during in-class debates (there will be practice debates most weeks of the term);
receive targeted, individualised feedback and work towards individual goals;
practice different speaking roles and argue from both affirmative and negative sides of a debate; and
learn how to work effectively in a team environment.

Debating Club is a modular program.

This means that instead of prescribing what coaches will teach over a term, we instead give them a wide range of content that they can pick and choose from, depending on the skill level, experience and general preferences of the students actually present in their class.

That said, students will:

have the opportunity to revise the key concepts involved with Policy-based debating at the beginning of the term to ensure that everyone is on the same page;
participate in practice debates almost every week; and
receive plenty of feedback to help them develop as individual debaters

If you’re interested in doing another term program, we would recommend that students move on to either:

our Debating Club program again – the content is modular, so students will learn something new every time they complete it; or
if your child is looking for something different and is in Year 7, our Public Speaking Penguins program for Years 5 – 7 would provide a new challenge!

Alternatively, if you’re looking for a holiday workshop, we offer:

Public Speaking Polar Bears, which takes Year 6 – 8 students through various different public speaking skills each holiday; or
Practice Debates, a modular class for Year 7 – 10 students to practice their skills multiple times over two days.

Check out our Frequently Asked Questions, or get in touch using our contact form to learn more!