Teacher CPD courses

We offer full-day, half-day and twilight workshops and training courses on classroom and extra-curricular debating, from absolute beginners to advanced coaching.

Whether your school is new to debating, or you’d like your team to have some advanced coaching, YSS can help!

NTRODUCTION TO CLASSROOM DEBATING​

Day course: 10am-3.30pm. £100 per teacher, lunch included.

Classroom debating is a great way of getting your pupils speaking and listening, while developing confidence and core skills. It’s also easier to manage with a whole class group than you might think.

We’ll introduce you to a range of debating techniques and activities that you can use in the classroom as a teaching aid and adapt to your own teaching programme and needs.

The emphasis is making sure every pupil has a meaningful role and the whole class is involved, and focusing on using debating as a vehicle to deliver the outcomes and experiences detailed in Curriculum for Excellence.

You’ll get to try out all the activities yourselves and come away with a tool box of ideas and plenty of resources.

Skills covered will include:

  • Getting started with debating
  • Different debate formats and how to adapt formats to topics]
  • Involving the whole class: every pupil has a part to play!
  • How to research and structure speeches
  • Adapting and building your own “debates and topics bank”
  • Integrating debating into your teaching programmes
  • Games and activities to build confidence in speaking

Suitable for primary and secondary teachers with little or no debating experience. We can also adapt this course for specific subject areas.

Please contact us to register interest or to find out dates of the next course. 0131 475 2332 or events@youngspeakersscotland.org.uk.

INTRO TO EXTRA-CURRICULAR DEBATING​

Twilight course. £75 per teacher.

Would you like to set up a debating society in your school? Would you like to enter a team into competitions but not really sure how? This course will help you get started.

Skills covered will include:

  • How to set up a debating society
  • Different debate formats
  • Different types of debating competition
  • Selecting and training a team
  • How debates are judged

Suitable for secondary teachers with little or no debating experience

Please contact us to register interest or to find out dates of the next course. 0131 475 2332 or events@youngspeakersscotland.org.uk.

ADVANCED DEBATES COACHING​

Twilight course. £75 per teacher.

Here we focus on more advanced debating techniques and getting your team from good to great.

Skills covered will include:

  • Motion analysis
  • Proposition strategies
  • Opposition strategies
  • Effective research
  • Use of evidence and statistics
  • Rebuttal techniques

This course is suitable for teachers with experience of coaching, who have previously entered teams into major competitions and wish to bring their squad to the next level.

Please contact us to register interest or to find out dates of the next course. 0131 475 2332 or events@youngspeakersscotland.org.uk.