Debate Hub

Zoe Paramour is the author of 3 education books: The Writing Book, The Grammar Book & How to be an Outstanding Primary Middle Leader. She has also been instrumental in the debating programme at South Hampstead Junior School and has a lot of thoughts on primary school oracy.

An in-depth discussion about the Oxbridge application process: admissions tests, what they really want to read in your personal statement and the dreaded interviews. How can debating help students prepare and what else can teachers and students do to maximise their chances of admission?

Part 2 of our bumper length discussion about the most important aspects of running a great debate club

In part 1 of this bumper episode, Kate and Michael discuss the principles that are key to success in a debate club and how to practically implement them in your club.

In this episode Michael and Kate talk to two year 11 students who both improved hugely during their year 10 and are now reaping the rewards as they break and win at seniors competitions.

In this week's episode Michael is joined not only by Kate but two of our colleagues from Physics and Classics, to discuss how to use debates and other oracy activities to enhance teaching, even if you don't have a debate background as a teacher.

In this episode, Michael and Kate discuss the incredible power of good assembies (and the horror of bad ones) and how you can change your school culture so that every assembly is interesting, inspiring and purposeful.

Today we sit down with Elisa from Oxford High School who did no debating in her own education but became head of debating at a top school in her second year of teaching. How has she found it and how has she succeeded?

Following on from our discussion of selecting students for competitions, this week Kate and Michael discuss how to pair students to compete. Just like team selection in football, team pairings for BP competitions are complex and multi-faceted. We discuss our process when we have to select teams for competitions, how often we vary pairings, pro ams and more!

In this episode Kate and Michael discuss when students are ready to compete, how to gauge that, which competitions to enter them for, and who to pick when competitions are oversubscribed. (Unfortunately, it's not as easy as 'the best people.')