We are currently looking for bright, articulate pupils who might be interested in trialling for the Scottish National Debating Team and Training Squads. The National Team will represent Scotland at the World Schools Debating Championships in the Summer of next year.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult to maintain schools debating in Scotland at scale and as such, we see 2021/2022 as a “rebuild year”, with the aim of finding new debaters – particularly those between s1 and s4 – who show potential. We will provide these debaters with speaking opportunities and basic workshops on the World Schools debating format. There will be no cost to trialists’ schools and no time requirements from teachers.
These pupils need not be from schools with an established debating culture.
We are looking for clever, well-spoken pupils with strong general knowledge about the world and current affairs. However, a good debater is not necessarily one of the top academic achievers at a school. In fact, debating is often the kind of activity in which pupils with idiosyncratic knowledge thrive.
If you are aware of pupils at your school who might be interested in taking up this opportunity, or a teacher who would be best placed to find these pupils, please send the attached application form to them. We would rather have more applications than less and plan to select a large trials pool. There is no limit to the number of applications we can accept from each school. If you know of teachers at other schools in your network who may be interested in this opportunity, please feel free to forward this to them too.
Further details on the training and selection process for 2021-22 are included in the ‘Invitation to Scottish Schools Debating Team’ attached, or any questions can be sent to scottishdebatingteam@gmail.com