posted 8th June 2026
You’re keen; they’re keen. You’re passionate about expanding debating at your school, and you have dozens of students desperate to join the debating club. So what’s the problem?
Time. Time is the problem. Time is, notoriously, the most precious and scarcest resource in any school. No matter how committed you are to debating, you also have to prepare your lessons, teach your lessons, mark work, look after your pastoral group and deal with the hundred and one other responsibilities of a teacher. It’s wonderful that there’s so much interest in debating that you could run a club every lunchtime and after school every day, but you don’t have every lunchtime, and you’d quite like to see your family once in a while.
So what’s the answer? Get the kids to do it for you. Appoint student leaders to run (at least some of) your debating clubs.
Here’s how to do it.
Whom to appoint
Students who lead debating clubs need to be older than the students they are leading. I suggest Year 10 as the youngest appropriate age to be a student leader.
They must also be experienced debaters themselves; it is not a role for novices. Ideally, they will have been doing debating since Y7 or even earlier; failing that, they should have at least a year’s experience.
Above all, they must be reliable and trustworthy. You need to be able to depend on them to show up without fail, week after week, regardless of coursework deadlines / better offers. A middle of the road debater who turns up every week, works hard and follows all your instructions is far preferable to a superstar who is witty, charismatic, wins all the competitions but keeps letting you down - always, of course, with a brilliantly argued excuse. (This is also true in other areas of life: love, politics, building projects …)
How to appoint them
There are various methods.
1. Ask for volunteers
Advantages: they will be genuinely committed.
Disadvantages: harder to turn down unsuitable candidates; you may have more than you need (or not enough).
2. The ‘tap on the shoulder’
You approach them, without any formal process.
Advantages: you can pick the students you know will do it best; they will feel especially valued and motivated at being chosen by you.
Disadvantages: it can be hard to defend your choice to disappointed candidates (and their parents); can lead to accusations of favouritism.
3. A formal procedure
At the school I used to work at, there was an elaborate system by which students in the spring term of Year 12 applied for ‘positions of responsibility’ across the school, e.g. sports captains, stage crew, support for public events etc. Teachers running these activities had to provide a detailed job description and application form, and to conduct interviews. I folded the post of ‘debating captain’ into this system. I had applicants provide a sample lesson plan for teaching a basic debating skill, and tested their knowledge of current affairs by asking them in their interview about issues in the news.
Advantages: it is thorough, rigorous and demonstrably fair; it raises the profile of debating and gives the message that it is a serious activity, to be taken seriously.
Disadvantages: it is a lot of work to set up and run.
What they need to do
As a minimum, they should run weekly debates, judge them and give feedback. If they feel confident enough (and you feel confident enough in them), they can also teach skills / lead discussions on debating issues. If you are entering students for external competitions, they can pick teams based on the performance of students in the club.
If you are running an internal competition (see how to run an internal competition), they will need to follow your structures. Otherwise, I would recommend taking a fairly light touch approach to directing their leadership of the club. No need to write detailed lesson plans for them to follow. Classroom management is not normally an issue, given that the students are attending the club on a voluntary basis. In my experience, student leaders will thrive if they feel they are trusted to lead in their own way. That said, if you receive any concerns about how the club is being run, you must investigate and deal with them promptly and thoroughly.
If you run any debating tournaments yourself (see how to run a debating tournament) you can use them as judges (and also for the more routine tasks such as showing people to rooms / putting out sandwiches etc.)
Outreach
If you have a relationship with a local primary school (or if your school has a prep department), student leaders can run a club there for Y5 and Y6 students. They can also go into local secondary schools where teachers do not have the time / expertise to run a debating club. Many private schools sponsor / support local state schools, and debating outreach can be a valued addition to such a programme.
Why a student leadership programme is a good idea
In my last year of teaching, I had seven debating captains. They were all brilliant, and all worked incredibly hard. And I needed them; debating at the school simply could not have functioned without them.
One reason they worked so hard was because they loved doing it. They had aspired to be debating captains since they were in Year 7, when they were inspired by the then debating captains. They wanted to be them. Anyone who has more than one child, or who has been a younger or youngest sibling, knows how powerful older children are as role models and inspirations for younger children. The truth is, older kids are more influential than teachers ever will be.
But as well as being good for the students they led, being a debating captain was good for them. They learnt leadership skills and responsibility. They loved sharing and promoting an activity they loved. They felt valued and respected. And it didn’t look bad on their UCAS form, either …
A student leadership programme is much more than a solution to a logistical problem. It will immensely enrich the debating culture in your school.
