Celebrating our 2025 wins
European Schools Debating Championships: In February, England A (Alvin Song, Adrian Siniscalco, Aryaman Sarda, Joshua Muzembe, Valerie Choi) and England B (Bethan Wood, Maia Drouin, George Koukis-Robinson, Kalel Majdoub) travelled to Romania for the European Schools Debating Championships. Both teams bowed out in the Quarterfinals, but not before clinching a number of speaker awards: Adrian ranked 7th, Maia 8th speaker, and Aryaman 9th on the Open speaker tab, while Valerie was ranked 5th on the ESL speaker tab.
World Schools Debating Championships: England A went on to attend the World Schools Debating Championships in Panama, where they won seven debates before bowing out to Bangladesh in the Octofinals. Congratulations to the team for a strong performance! We would also like to wish our Team Captain, Valerie, the very best of luck as she embarks on her undergraduate course at Cambridge University.
Development Squad: We will be running a development squad programme before the summer. Look out for more information on our development squad in the new year!
Team England Selections: In October, over 150 applicants participated in the Team England selection process. Over the course of two days, they took part in debates about sports, religion, electoral systems, and more. In the end, 13 applicants were selected for the England Squad. Our congratulations to Alvin, Adrian, Aryaman, Channing, Ethan, George, Harry, Joshua, Louie, Maia, Penny, Sabrina, and Max!
The final line-up will be announced in January, so look out for the announcement here. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram to keep up with the team as they prepare for the World Schools Debating Championships.
Engaging Schools
England BP: Our annual competition, England BP, ran in July and saw 80 participants from 12 schools debating about international aid, the commercialisation of reproduction, and drug trials. We will be running the 2026 edition of England BP next summer, so make sure to look out for the announcement on the website.
CPD Conference: In November Debate England hosted its inaugural CPD conference at Dartmouth House in Central London, in partnership with Noisy Classroom and Debating for Everyone.
50 secondary school teachers and debating leaders attended. The keynote speaker was Geoff Barton CBE, former leader of ASCL and Chair of the Oracy Commission. As well as the keynote speech, participants took part in practical workshops and explored the role of debating in raising standards, strengthening skills, and widening participation.
We will be running this conference again next year. If you have any feedback on how this year’s conference went, or any suggestions for what you might like to see at next year’s conference, please do reach out to us.
Organisational changes
New General Manager: Enting Lee joined us in November as General Manager, supporting both our organisation running and our programmes. Enting brings deep experience as a teacher, debate coach, civil servant, and competitive debater.
Coaches: We will shortly be opening applications for the positions of Team England Coach and Development Squad Coach for next year. This is a fantastic opportunity to help shape the future of England schools debating and make a tremendous impact on the growth and development of young debaters. If you are keen to be involved, or know someone who is, please let us know.
Debate England board: After 5 years of service, Andrew Fitch stepped down from the board. We would like to thank him for his stellar contribution to the organisation over the years.
What’s next for Debate England?
Website Refresh and Resources for Schools
We are updating the Debate England website to better serve the needs of schools, teachers, and debaters. To this end, we recently launched a running Competitions Calendar – if there is a competition you’d like added to the page, please let us know!
We have also put together a public resource bank for schools and teachers, including:
- Guides to the World Schools and British Parliamentary debate formats
- Resources for starting a debate club
- Links to motion databases
- Glossary of debate terminology
Please get in touch with us if you are willing to contribute to our resource page, or if you have suggestions about what resources might be helpful for you.
Upcoming events: We will shortly be opening applications for the development squad training programme. We are particularly interested in receiving applications from school students who show significant promise, but may not have had much competitive experience.
As usual, we will be running England BP next summer.
As we ramp up our efforts for next year, we would love to hear from you. Contact us here, or say hello to us in-person at Oxford and Cambridge Finals Days next year!
Debate England 
Leave a comment