As the organisers of the ESU Schools Mace, the national debating championship and the founders of the phenomenally successful London Debate Challenge, the ESU is the UK's leading provider of debate training to secondary schools.

Our expertise covers all Key Stages and subject areas, and Discover Your Voice will help you develop both debate within the classroom and as an extra-curricular activity.

What's different about what we do

The use of the word ‘debate’ in schools ranges from quite informal discussions to models emulating highly complex organisations like the United Nations.

For everyday classroom use it’s important to strike a balance between simplicity and informality on the one hand and, on the other, having enough rules to result in a fair and balanced set of interrelating speeches which has all the excitement of game-based activities like football or tennis.

The ESU’s role in devising and running programmes like the London Debate Challenge and the ESU Schools Mace has given us years of experience in the application of such formats to classroom and extra-curricular use. Two of our most popular formats are illustrated below.