Lesson video

Hello, everyone.

My name is Mr. Brown and I'm your teacher for today's debating lesson.

And we are going to be focusing on motions, motions that matter, motions that are important for us to discuss and debate.

So really excited to see your opinions, to be able to discuss them with you, to get involved in debates about motions that matter.

Let's go for it.

The outcome for today's lesson is, I can design my own motion to debate an important topic.

The key words we will use are motion, proposal, and belief.

Let's say this together.

My turn and then your turn.

Motion, proposal, belief.

Fabulous.

Now, the motion is the name for the belief or proposal that is being debated.

A proposal is the action of proposing a plan or suggestion.

Belief is a firmly held opinion about something.

We'll start today's lesson by looking at what makes a good debate motion, and then move on to designing a motion that matters.

A debate is a structured argument between two teams. The two teams need a topic to debate.

The topic that is being debated is called the motion, and you can't have a debate without one.

Discuss with your partner what motions have you debated previously.

Are there any that stand out? Were they good motions or not? Explain why.

Talk to the person next to you.

What motions have you debated previously? How many can you remember? And were they good or not? And explain why.

Pause the video and have a go now.

Welcome back.

Okay, I hope you enjoyed your discussion and you were able to remember lots of motions that you've debated previously.

A debate motion is often written as a belief or proposal.

A debate motion will also start with the words, this house, because it has origins in the British parliamentary system.

So when they're referring to this house, they mean the house is a parliament.

Put simply, a debate motion will either be something that the house is proposing to do or change, that's a proposal, or something the house thinks or believes in, that's a belief.

So time for a discussion.

What makes an effective debate motion? What makes a debate motion good? What makes it worthwhile debating? With the person next to you, have that discussion, pause the video now.

And welcome back.

An effective debate motion is essential for a debate to be successful.

A great debate motion should be clear and easy to understand, fair for both sides, relatable, interesting and important, thought provoking.

So being able to make you think about something quite deeply, and appropriate and respectful.

A great debate motion should be, is it, A, fair for both sides, B, thought provoking, or C, difficult to understand? And there may be more than one correct answer.

So pause the video and decide for yourself now.

Welcome back.

A great debate motion should be, A, fair for both sides, absolutely, and B, thought provoking.

Not C, difficult to understand.

We want our debate motions to be easy for the audience and the speakers to be able to understand.

Let's have another discussion.

This time let's think about what makes an effective debate motion.

Use the criteria below to help you.

So if the motion is this house would ban school uniform, is that an effective debate motion? Here's the criteria.

Have a think with the person next to you.

Do you think that is an effective debate motion? What makes this an effective debate motion? Is it? Pause the video and have that discussion now.

Welcome back.

What did you think, this house would ban school uniform? Is that an effective debate motion? Well, it absolutely is, and it's a great motion because it's very clear, it can be argued easily for both sides and is relatable, as most children wear uniform.

So this is something that children would know a lot about, so it's very relatable, it's appropriate and respectful, it would provoke thoughts because I think it's not easy to decide either way, there's arguments for both sides, and that's really important too.

So it's a great debate motion.

What makes an effective debate motion? Let's try again, but this time we'll change the motion.

Is this an effective debate motion? And the motion is, this house believes everyone should have a pet.

Is this an effective debate motion? Pause the video and have a discussion with your partner and decide now.

Welcome back.

Let's see if you thought that it was an effective debate motion.

Well, we have an example here which says, this is a great motion because it's very thought provoking and would provoke interesting arguments from both sides.

Absolutely.

This house believes everyone should have a pet.

What do you think? I can see reasons why having a pet would be beneficial for everyone, but I could also see lots of practical reasons why it wouldn't and it would actually add more stress to people's lives rather than taking it away.

So it's a great motion because you can see both sides, and I would love to hear arguments for both teams in that debate.

Let's try another one, shall we? Is this an effective debate motion? Use the criteria below again to help you.

This house believes junk food is good.

So there's the criteria.

Is this an effective debate motion? Pause the video.

Have a discussion with the person next to you.

Is this an effective debate motion? If not, why? Pause the video and have that discussion now.

And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a think, shall we? Is this an effective debate motion? Well, we have an answer here from Alex and he says, this is not a good motion because it is not able to be argued from both sides.

As everyone knows, junk food isn't good for you.

Absolutely.

How would this be a fair debate? How would a team be able to argue that junk food is good for you? Perhaps they would say very occasionally it could be good for your mental health to give yourself a treat.

You could use it as a reward, but I think it is not a good debate motion because like Alex says, it's just not fair.

It is such an advantage to be the team who are supporting, to the opposition, they are against this.

It's such an advantage to them.

So not a good debate motion.

Let's try another one.

This time it's this house believes that boys are better than girls.

Is that's a good debate motion? Is it effective? If not, why? With the person next to you have a chat, have a discussion, and explain yourself.

Off you go.

Welcome back, everyone.

Is it an effective debate motion? What do you think? Give me thumbs up or thumbs down.

Okay.

Yeah, I think I agree with you.

Thumbs down.

It is not a good motion because it is not respectful and it's inappropriate to debate something that may cause gender discrimination.

Debating that boys are better than girls, that is not an appropriate thing to be debating.

Time for a practise task.

With a partner, discuss and sort these debate motions into two categories and explain your reasoning.

So I want two categories, one that is good debate motions, and one that is not good debate motions.

Very simple.

Here are the motions.

This house would ban video games.

This house believes adults should have more breaks at work.

This house believes that sweets are healthier than vegetables.

This house would ban mobile phones for under twelves.

This house believes that schools should start an hour later.

And finally, this house proposes an inquiry into the efficacy of implementing novel measures to enhance the bibliophilic nurturing of young minds.

What do you think? Let's sort these into good debate motions and not good debate motions.

And remember, this is for children of your age to be able to debate and an audience that will be made up of your peers, children of your age too.

Okay, with the person next to you, let's sort these motions.

Pause the video and have a go now.

Welcome back, everyone.

Let's have a look at how you got on.

So the good debate motions would be, this house would ban video games.

This house believes that schools should start an hour later.

This house would ban mobile phones for under twelves.

All of these motions can be debated for both sides equally.

It's a fair debate.

I can think of lots of reasons for the proposition and the opposition for all of these.

They are relevant to people of your age.

They are respectful, appropriate, so they are good debate motions.

Here's an example from Alex.

He says, this house believes that schools should start an hour later.

Well, this is a good debate motion because it is thought provoking and could be argued from both sides easily.

Now, these are not good debate motions.

This house believes that sweets are healthier than vegetables.

How can that be argued? Everybody knows that sweets are not healthier than vegetables, so it is not a fair motion to debate.

This house believes that adults should have more breaks at work.

Well, that could be a good debate, but for adults, not for children.

How would you be able to relate to that and understand what it's like for an adult to be at work? So that's not a good debate motion for children.

And the huge complicated motion at the end about the inquiry into young minds, oh my goodness, this was very complicated for anybody to understand and not a good debate motion.

Here's an example.

This house believes adults should have more breaks at work.

This is not a good motion because it is not something children can relate to as it's about adults' working conditions.

Let's move on to designing a motion that matters.

Debating can be an important and useful way to discuss things that might be difficult to talk about in our everyday life.

One way that debates are used in real life to discuss important issues is during elections to decide which political party will govern the country.

This debate and the speeches that are made can have a huge impact on people's lives and therefore are extremely important.

The motions that are put to potential prime ministers during these debates when there is an election taking place are hugely important and will affect everybody across the country.

So therefore, they are motions that really matter.

In schools, debates can be used to discuss topics that really matter and will have a genuine impact on the lives of the children at that school.

For example, all of these areas of school life can be debated, discussed, and potentially changed, such as timings of the school day.

That's a hugely important thing that matters to everybody and their families.

Uniform, after school activities, play times, lesson timetables and trips.

Of course, these are all big things that affect your life at school, so they deserve to be debated and discussed.

Discuss with the person next to you, which of these areas of school life would you like to debate and why? Which of these areas? Would it be timings of the school day, uniform, after school activities, play times, lesson, timetables or trips? Which of these would you like to discuss and why? Think about, would you want to change anything about any of these? Do you have strong feelings about any of them? Okay, discuss with the person next to you.

Pause the video and have that discussion now.

Welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look at an example answer.

So we have, I would like to debate play times because I believe that with some changes, the whole experience of playtime could be improved for everyone.

And I'm sure you feel similarly.

I'm sure you have some ideas about things that could make playtime better and holding a debate to discuss those is a perfect way to do it.

How about these? Which of these aspects of your local area would you like to debate and why? So you may want to discuss school, but you may want to discuss your local area.

And if you are discussing a local area, you might want to talk about parks and playgrounds, road safety and traffic, leisure facilities such as swimming pools or cinemas or shopping centres, policing and antisocial behaviour.

So people doing things that they should not be doing in your local area.

And public transport.

Discuss with the person next to you, which of these aspects of your local area would you like to debate and why? Pause the video and have a go now.

And welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look at an example from Izzy.

She says, I would like to debate parks because my local park has been neglected and the equipment is mostly broken.

This means a lot to me as I play in this park a lot.

Great answer, Izzy.

I can see that the park means so much to you and if improvements were to be made, the experience would be so much better.

Once you have some important issues you want to debate, you then need to think about a single aspect that you might want to discuss or change.

What could we discuss or change about play times at school? We could discuss the length of playtime.

That could be changed.

Playtimes could be longer or shorter.

How the different classes mix.

So do you have the whole of key stage two mixing together? Is it just two classes that mix? Would you like more mixing or less mixing? What equipment should be available? The equipment that you currently have available, do you like it, does it work for you? Is it not working for any reason? What snacks should be allowed? Should there be a ruling on what snacks can be allowed or should it be something that children can decide themselves? How behavioural issues are handled.

Should they be handled in the playground? Should they be handled away from the playground? Should you have a bench that people sit on if they are needing some time to re-regulate or think about a mistake they've made or should that not be in view of everyone else? Interesting.

And what games or sports should be played? That would be something that could really make a difference at playtime.

Are there some sports that are not allowed in your playtime at the moment? Perhaps if they were, you think it would be different, or are there sports that are allowed and you think, actually, if we weren't to play this, I think everyone would enjoy playtime a bit more.

So have a think.

What could we discuss or change about play times at school? Discuss which of these particular aspects of playtime would you like to debate and why? Pause the video and have that discussion now.

Welcome back, everyone.

Let's have a think about turning these particular aspects into a debate motion by phrasing them as something we believe to be true or something we propose to happen.

We'll have a look at that now.

So let's use the length of playtime as an example.

As a belief, we could say, this house believes that longer playtime benefits children's education.

Or this house believes that shorter play times may help to improve the behaviour of children at school.

As a proposal, we could say this house would increase or decrease the length of school play times or this house would give children in year six less playtime.

So that is a proposal.

We're saying, we would do this, this house would do this, this house would make this change.

Which of these debate motions around how behavioural issues are handled are proposals and not beliefs? Is it A, this house would ban timeouts at playtime? Is it B, this house believes that public timeouts at playtime are detrimental to children's mental health, or C, this house would force children to wear a red bib if misbehaving at playtime.

So these are all debate motions.

They're all interesting.

It could be debated.

But which are proposals and not beliefs? Pause the video and decide for yourself now.

Welcome back.

Okay, let's have a look, see if you found the correct answers.

Well done if you said A and C, this house would ban timeouts at playtime.

The word would tells you that it is a proposal.

This house would force children to wear a red bib if misbehaving at playtime.

Again, the word would.

And B, this house believes, that means that it's a belief.

Time for a task.

Work with a partner to discuss and design motions that matter and are important to debate because they impact your lives.

Use these areas of school life and your local community to help guide your ideas.

So we have the timings of the school day, uniform, after school activities, play times, lesson timetables and trips, in terms of areas of school life and in your local community, we have parks and playgrounds, road safety and traffic, leisure facilities, policing and antisocial behaviour and public transport.

Phrase some motions as beliefs and some as proposals.

So play around with which work best as a belief and which work best as a proposal.

Try and create as many motions as you can, and of course, it's motions that really matter that we're looking for.

Okay, work with a partner to complete this task now.

Welcome back, everyone.

I'm so intrigued to see what motions you came up with.

Let's have a look at some examples from Andeep and Izzy.

So they said, this house would make afterschool activities compulsory for all children.

Love it.

Okay, so every single child has to go to an afterschool activity.

I can see loads of benefits for that, but I can also see some complications.

I can see some difficulties.

I can see some ways that might impact children negatively.

So it's a perfect debate motion.

We also have this house believes that school trips are a waste of learning time.

Wow.

Very thought provoking.

This house would ban children over the age of nine from using public playgrounds.

Okay, that's an interesting one.

And this house believes that leisure facilities such as swimming pools should be free to use for everyone under 16.

Okay, straightaway, loads of pros coming to mind, loads of positives, but also some cons.

I'm a bit worried about how that's going to be financed and the impact that would have on a swimming pool if it was packed full of children who were just using it because it was free.

I don't know.

That's a really good debate motion because I'm right in the middle.

Well done to Andeep and Izzy.

Let's summarise the learning we've done today.

The motion is the name for the belief or proposal that is being debated.

The motion in a debate always starts with the words, this house.

There are different types of motion.

There are beliefs.

This house believes that, and proposals this house would.

A debate motion is most effective when it is relevant to the lives of the people in the debate and the audience.

An effective debate motion will encourage critical thinking and mature discussion.

Brilliant work today.

You have created lots of motions that do really matter and need to be discussed and debated, and that's an amazing thing to do.

Well done.

I'll see you again very soon.