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Year 5

Preparing for a debate

I can follow a guide to help prepare for a debate.

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New
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Year 5

Preparing for a debate

I can follow a guide to help prepare for a debate.

Download all resources
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Share activities with pupils
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These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.

Switch to our new teaching resources now - designed by teachers and leading subject experts, and tested in classrooms.

These resources were created for remote use during the pandemic and are not designed for classroom teaching.

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. An important part of preparing for a debate is generating points for your side of the argument.
  2. The points that your team generates should be ordered from strongest to weakest to ensure your best points are included.
  3. The points generated should be assigned to different members of your team.
  4. A debate team should liaise with each other while writing their speeches to avoid repetition.

Keywords

  • Generate - Generate means to produce or create something.

  • Order - To order is to arrange things a particular way.

  • Assign - To assign means to allocate or designate.

  • Liaise - Liaise means to communicate with someone else.

Common misconception

Children may think that all points are equally effective in a debate.

Whilst it is good to generate lots of points when preparing for a debate, they will vary in how effective they are.


To help you plan your year 5 english lesson on: Preparing for a debate, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

This lesson will prepare your children to work in teams to independently prepare for a debate. However, they will likely need adult support while they get used to doing this.
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This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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Starter quiz

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6 Questions

Q1.
In a debate, what would an opposing team member use to interrupt a speaker while they are making their speech?
rebuttal
Correct answer: point of information
summary
Q2.
What will a point of information often be phrased as?
a statement
Correct answer: a question
a command
Q3.
Why should a point of information only be 10-15 seconds long?
Correct answer: to not take up too much of the speaker's allotted time
to make sure the audience do not lose interest
to give the speaker just a short time to rest while they're not speaking
Q4.
Which of these would an opposing team member not do when making a point of information?
stand up
place one hand on their head
Correct answer: raise one foot off the ground
extend one hand out to the speaker
Q5.
How many points of information should be accepted during a speaker's speech?
as many as possible
none
Correct answer: at least one
Q6.
Which of these are ways a speaker could decline a point of information?
Correct answer: shake their head
Correct answer: say "No, thank you"
make a cross with their hands
look away from the person making the POI

Exit quiz

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6 Questions

Q1.
What is the acronym used to support a team in preparing for a debate?
PEPS
BRB
Correct answer: GOAL
Q2.
What does GOAL stand for?
generate, order, arrange, liaise
generate, order, assign, look
Correct answer: generate, order, assign, liaise
generate, organise, assign, liaise
Q3.
What is a team generating when preparing for a debate?
noise
Correct answer: points
questions
Q4.
How many points should a team try to generate?
1 - 2
2 - 3
more than 5
Correct answer: as many as possible
Q5.
What should the team do after they have generated all their points?
assign them to the speakers
Correct answer: order them
liaise with each other
Q6.
Why is it important that a team liaises with each other whilst writing their speeches?
Correct answer: to avoid repetition
to help each other write their speeches
to check each other's speeches have been written neatly