Tuesday
4:30PM - 6:30PM
2nd February - 30th March
5 Weeks
$360 $240
Debating Pelicans builds on the foundational knowledge developed in Debating Parrots (or our Debating Hummingbirds holiday program) and helps students take their skills to the next level.
Student to Teacher Ratio 8:1Give students further exposure to the world of debating, including new skills and topic area briefings.
Provide students with the opportunity to participate in debates almost every week.
Allow students to practice their skills and receive feedback to help develop.
Tuesday
4:30PM - 6:30PM
2nd February - 30th March
5 Weeks
$360 $240
Wednesday
4:30PM - 6:30PM
3rd February - 31st March
5 Weeks
$360 $240
Wednesday
4:30PM - 6:30PM
27th January - 31st March
5 Weeks
$550 $385
Bookings for Term #1 are now OPEN!
This program is designed for students with debating experience who want to develop their skills and thrive within the art form.
Utilising primarily policy-based topics, this program takes an experiential learning perspective on debating. Students will learn new concepts every session, debate almost every week (and do practice speeches when a debate isn’t possible), and receive plenty of individualised feedback throughout the program.
This course is the perfect way for students to take on some new speaking and analytical challenges, and continue to develop their skills throughout their later primary school years.
As with all our weekly programs, we keep our class sizes small (a maximum of 8) so that each student is provided with plenty of support and attention, including plenty of individualised feedback from our experienced coaches.
During the upcoming term, we will be offering our weekly programs 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.
Notably, the difference in price 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) associated with running classes in-person.
Should you want to learn more about our online offering, we’ve got a helpful video which goes through our Debating Pelicans Online program below – stay tuned for one that explores our in-person program as well!
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 three 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 Debating Pelicans course is an experienced level program.
Designed for students with formal coaching in debating, we recommend that students only enrol if they have:
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 Debating Parrots program a try.
If you’re not sure whether your child would be better suited for our Debating Parrots or Debating Pelicans program, please get in touch, and we would be more than happy to discuss it with you!
Over the term, students will have the opportunity to:
Our Debating Pelicans course is a modular program. This means that rather than prescribe 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 group that they are teaching.
That said, students will:
For physical classes, we’ll make an assessment closer to the end of the term as to whether we can run presentations in person. If government restrictions still prevent parents from entering the classrooms, we’ll either film their presentations, or potentially live stream them for parents to watch from home!
Our classes vary in size every workshop depending on how many bookings we receive – however, the maximum size of our Debating Pelicans class is around eight students with one coach.
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!
By the end of each program, students will have:
My child attended his first term program with Speaking Schools Sydney and loved it. He found the way Tennyson teaches was easy to follow and fun. He looks up to his coach not just a debating expert but also a big brother who has other many talents.
As a parent, I found the coach and the Speaking School team have always been friendly and helpful. They look after each child's needs for development and engage the children very well.
Thank you Tennyson, Mark, Chris and the Speaking Schools Sydney team!
Great teachers, loved seeing how engaged the teachers were and hearing the warm, positive feedback they gave participants presenting to parents on the final day.
Of the parents we've surveyed about our online programs...
Felt their child had fun
Believed their child's confidence improved
Thought their child's speech structure improved
Said their child's manner improved