Debate Club

About Cosmic Star Debate Club

Cosmic Star Debate Club matters because ideas matter. This is the premise of the Cosmic Star Debate Club Competition, which emphasises debaters’ knowledge and clear thinking over points of order and rhetorical flourishes.

By debating real-world issues, students are introduced to key controversies at the top of the public agenda.

Using the Cosmic Star Debate Club Topic Guides, the competition challenges school pupils to go beyond the media headlines and delve deeper into the biggest issues confronting society.

How is Cosmic Star Debate Club different?

You might already debate or do public speaking at school. If so, great. But Cosmic Star Debate Club is different by design from other forms of debating, which focus mainly on public speaking. In brief, Cosmic Star Debate Club:

— Focuses on ‘substance over style’, and judges teams on who has the best arguments and research, not who has the most flowery rhetoric

— Encourages pupils to research topics well in advance using carefully produced ‘topic guides’

— Situates real-world debates as they are discussed in politics and the media

— Involves eminent judges in questioning the debaters and putting them on the spot to justify their argument