Cameron Vale School - 29th April 2025

It was great to begin our Debating, Public Speaking & Interview club at Cameron Vale School.

We were very impressed with both the lower and upper school groups. 

Our first two weeks will involve an introduction to debating format and key public speaking skills. This week we turned to debating structure and our skills of the week, ‘how to build a proposition argument’, and the best use of ‘body language’ during a debate or presentation setting. We will continue to review these skills over the coming weeks.

Throughout we are looking to build on points made with supporting justification: from questions, to stories and evidence.

Each session also involves (as warm-up) a newsround. This took in (amongst other topics): Trump’s tariffs, the passing of Pope Francis and funeral, the Canadian election, the War in Ukraine, the London Marathon, and the all women Blue Origin Space mission. 

Our warm-up question asked:   

'What was the highlight of your holiday? & crucially why?' Justification was key here.

Highlights took in:

Skiing, time with friends and family, fishing and tennis. 

We then divided into teams for our set-piece debates. The motions:

• ‘This House believes we should do homework’

• ‘This House believes that video games are better than board games’

• ‘This House would ban devices (iphones, ipads etc./computers) from bedrooms for children’

• ‘This House would ban junk food from schools’

• ‘This House believes the Blue Origin Space mission was a great event for humanity? & not a publicity stunt’

• ‘This House believes that UK should reduce our imports of the avocado to help the environment’ (on the back of Alan Titchmarsh's recent comments) 

In each case we worked on both sides of the argument, with voting before and after. It was super to see the groups grow in confidence as the session progressed with some compelling and extended argumentation. 

A super start - very well done all!