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“I wish you’d come to my school when I was a child. I was the one who hid behind my hair at the back of the class and hoped nobody asked me to speak.”

I still remember the passion a teaching assistant showed in these words after a training session, ten years ago or more. None of her teachers had helped her find her voice. It was only well into adulthood that, fed up of being sidelined, she did so herself by sheer willpower. A teacher at a recent open evening had said her son was, “No trouble, you’d hardly know he’s there.”  You can imagine how that went down.

We've spent the last fifteen years working with schools to develop students speaking and listening. Debate Planet is our most exciting offer yet - everything you need to help every child find their voice, and be more willing to hear others.
Our story
Debate Planet has been in the making for over fifteen years. It's the child of three brains.

Jason Buckley and Tom Bigglestone work with schools wearing many hats - as experts in Philosophy for Children, metacognition, stretching the more able and outdoor expeditions. Marley Davies is a graduate of philosophy now moving into law who has worked as a nanny to many children who love a playful argument.

We'd facilitated debates with thousands of children - in school, at residential camps or on multi-activity residentials. But the first lockdown of 2020 took us online - and to running Debate Clubs which quickly gained a reputation as a welcoming and stimulating space where children could interact with others, whilst the outside world demanded they keep a distance.

In collaboration with the children, we developed an approach with a clear structure, roles and rewards, but less threatening and more informal than traditional debating formats. We continually added to our stock of debate motions, now the world's biggest collection of things to argue about, the "Motion Explorer". We still use it every week for our online debate classes for 9-12s and teens.

And now, you can get access to everything for your own school debate club, form time activity or oracy curriculum.
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Debates that involve everyone
From motions that engage, excite and inspire to roles and rewards - Debate Planet has everything to make your debate club inclusive and appropriate for all.
Debate Passports to track pupil progress
Each pupil gets their own Debate Planet Passport to collect stamps, record their votes and track their improvement.
Meet the team
Tom Bigglestone

Tom works with schools week-in, week-out on improving critical thinking opportunities within their curriculum. On top of debating, his areas of expertise includes P4C, Metacognition and outdoor education. He is one half of "The Philosophy Man" with Jason.

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Marley Davies

Our Motion-Creator-in-Chief. As well as running weekly philosophy and debate classes of her own, Marley is responsible for much of the Motion Explorer, and creates all our eye-catching graphics and icons. Her ability to find the debatable in anything is unrivalled!

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Jason Buckley

One of the world’s leading authorities on Philosophy for Children (P4C), classroom dialogue and stretching the more able. Debate Planet's origins lie in Jason's online debate classes, first begun during over lockdown and still thriving!

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