How to encourage student involvement
After the first few meetings of the society, and depending on how many people want to get involved in the new society, there are various ways in which students can get involved. This can be through a formal election process. Elected roles could include:
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| President | Takes overall charge and chairs meetings of the society. The president can also represent the society to the School Council and the Senior Management Team. |
| Secretary | Can take the minutes of the society meetings and keep a special minutes book of all the debates themselves. The secretary can note down who has spoken and how many times throughout the year (ensuring that everyone has a fair turn). |
| Membership Officer | Could be responsible for keeping attendance, recruiting new members and publicity for the debating society. |
| Liaison Officer | Deals with local schools (for local tournaments, one-off competitive debates, etc). |
| Guest Speaker Officer | Can invite guest speakers if the society decides to host gala or show debates. |
| Junior Speaker Officer | Involved with training and mentoring junior speakers. |
An election is a useful way to create a ‘buzz’ within the society. This can be administered at a meeting of the society and the candidates can make speeches about why they should be elected. Of course, a society does not need all of these positions - these are just an idea of some of the roles that pupils can play within a debating society. These roles do not have to be filled by the most experienced or ‘best’ debaters. Roles can be filled by anyone in the society and this is a way for the less confident debaters to play a crucial role in the society.
As pupils become experienced debaters, they can play a crucial role in mentoring and training the younger debaters. This sort of mentoring can be done in numerous ways - either by letting the more experienced debaters become involved in the training of the younger speakers, or by pairing experienced and less experienced speakers together in tournaments.
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