ISDS Young Learners’ Academy

ISDS Young Learners' Academy

The Young Learners’ Academy is designed as a comprehensive summer programme for students in grades 6-8 who are yet to enter the world of public speaking and debate. It consists of 5 Modules delivered over 4 weeks with each week including live online sessions and take home assignments.

Introducing the ISDS Young Learners’ Academy

The Young Learners’ Academy is designed as a comprehensive summer programme for students in grades 6-8 who are yet to enter the world of public speaking and debate. It combines and elevates our content from the ISDS Budding Speaker Launchpad and the ISDS Junior Academies with a debate competition at the end to provide a holistic overview of engagement with debate.

What do students learn?

The Young Learners’ Academy consists of 5 Modules delivered over 4 weeks. Each week includes live online sessions and take home assignments. We expect that students will spend 8-10 hours each week on course-related activities.

  • Week 1: Developing speaking skills and confidence
  • Week 2: Introduction to the WSDC format
  • Week 3: Argumentation
  • Week 4: Responses
  • Week 5: Evaluation

A detailed articulation of the structure and contents of the course are laid out here:
► The detailed structure can be found here

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Why should you attend?

As with all ISDS programmes, this is a great gateway to learning to communicate in a structured manner from some of India and the world’s best. However, this programme is unique in 5 ways:

  • This is ISDS’ only integrated programme for junior students – concepts from across our workshops are interwoven to make this programme to give students the flexibility to apply the communication and debate skills they learn in any setting
  • This programme simulates a competition environment in a safe space for the students in the final module to give them their first taste of competitive debating similar to internationally acclaimed tournaments
  • Each trainer works with a small batch of students (~12) to maximise personal attention and absorption of feedback
  • The best performers at the Young Learners’ Academy receive a direct invitation to later rounds of our selection process for the Indian National Debate Squad, and access to exclusive content Masterclasses
  • Attendees with 100% attendance enter a wider ISDS student community channel where they can connect with other students from across the country to learn more about debate and practice
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Session Details

Session Title Date & Time
1/ Essential Principles of Public Speaking May 14 ’24 (Tue)
4:30-6:30 pm IST
2/ Crafting Impactful Speeches May 16 ’24 (Thu)
4:30-6:30 pm IST
3/ Delivering Impactful Speeches May 18 ’24 (Sat)
2:00-4:00 pm IST
4/ Practice Makes Perfect – Speech Delivery and Feedback May 21 ’24 (Tue)
4:30-6:30 pm IST
5/ Introduction to WSDC Debating May 23 ’24 (Thu)
4:30-6:30 pm IST
6/ Setting up Debates and Building Policies May 25 ’24 (Sat)
2:00-4:00 pm IST
7/ Generating Claims and Analysing them May 28 ’24 (Tue)
4:30-6:30 pm IST
8/ Argumentation Practise May 30 ’24 (Thu)
4:30-6:30 pm IST
9/ Building and Delivering Rebuttal Jun 4 ’24 (Tue)
4:30-6:30 pm IST
10/ Rebuttal Practise Jun 6 ’24 (Thu)
4:30-6:30 pm IST
11/ WSDC Debate Tournament Jun 8 ’24 (Sat)
10:00 am – 4:00 pm IST

Registration Details

  • Dates: 14th May to 8th June 2024
  • Timings: Please check the above table for details
  • Location: Online over Zoom
  • Eligibility: School students in grades 6 – 8 studying in India
  • Cost per student: Rs. 15,000/-
  • Team cost for students applying in teams of 3 (Team need not be from the same school):  Rs. 40,500/- (Rs 13,500/- per student)

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