A debate format that gives sixty pupils a speaking turn in one lesson, with sentence frames that make it possible for pupils who have never spoken in front of the class.
Debate is often dismissed as impossible in a class of sixty, on the reasonable grounds that only the confident few will speak. This format solves that by removing the audience: pupils debate in fours, simultaneously, all round the room. The noise is considerable and the participation is close to total.
Every pupil is given a role, a position they did not choose, and a set of sentence frames. Being assigned a side matters more than it sounds, because it separates the argument from the person and makes it safe to lose. The frames matter because they let a pupil with modest English take a full turn without inventing structure under pressure.
Eighteen debate motions are included, chosen to be arguable by secondary pupils from their own experience and to avoid subjects that could put a teacher or a school in a difficult position. Guidance on choosing further motions safely is included.
Let pupils choose and the debate becomes an argument between friends. Assign by counting off and the same pupils will argue positions they privately disagree with, which is where the language work happens.
Pupils will want to abandon them. Holding the line early means that when they do drop the frames, they are dropping them because they no longer need them.
Over a term every pupil should have spoken first, spoken last, and taken notes. The note-taker role is the one that gets quietly avoided, so track it.
A repeatable opening routine that gets every child speaking English before the first lesson begins, with nothing but a blackboard and a class list.
A set of six wordless picture sequences and the questions that turn them into spoken stories, retellings and eventually written paragraphs.