How St Vincent's made debate ordinary for visually impaired pupils

The situation

Conor McSorley teaches humanities at St Vincent's School for Visually Impaired Pupils in Liverpool, which he describes as one of only around three schools in the UK catering specifically for visually impaired pupils. His background is inclusive education, and he arrived with a clear view of what he was aiming at beyond the classroom.

Visually impaired people are quite marginalised in society. Specifically when it comes to after education, employment rates are very low, and one of the ways that I think we can tackle that is by giving pupils a voice, giving them confidence. Conor McSorley, Humanities Teacher

St Vincent's delivers the same national curriculum as any other school. What surrounds it is different: braille, and habilitation, which is mobility, so lessons on how to get out, how to get on trains, how to get on buses. The teaching has to change as well, and Conor found that out in his first week.

For the first two days, I had to be blindfolded. And I was taken all around Liverpool, because you have to put yourself in the shoes of the people you're teaching. Conor McSorley, Humanities Teacher

What stuck was the effect on his planning.

It really opened my eyes as a teacher about how am I mapping myself around the classroom? How am I projecting things? How am I going to get through to pupils? A lot of teachers are heavily reliant on visuals and powerpoints, so I had to really get out of that frame of mind. Conor McSorley, Humanities Teacher

That is the practical starting point for everything below. If the default classroom runs on what is on the board, a debate has to be built around what people can hear and say.

His first attempt at buying a debating programme in cost close to £2,000, and the person sent to deliver it was a student rather than a teacher, handed a PowerPoint and a schedule. He ended up doing the work himself. His conclusion was not to give up on debate, but that everything in education is trial and error, and the first thing you try is not usually the thing you keep.

What they built

Two separate things run in the same week, and Conor is deliberate about the difference between them.

A pupil meeting on Mondays that he walks out of

The first thing he set up was a school council, on the basis that if you want to give pupils a voice, that is where you start. It meets on a Monday. He takes in resources from the Smart School Councils site and picks a question to get them going, at the level that fits the group, something as plain as whether lunchtimes should be longer. Then he goes.

I just go into the room, I give them some resources and then I leave. Because it has to really be pupil voice led. Conor McSorley, Humanities Teacher

Whatever the group decides goes back to the senior leadership team as pupil ideas. His warning to other teachers is about the temptation to steer:

You can't go in thinking well I want the kids to debate about this and then I can evidence that so it looks good. It really has to be about what their issues are, what they're feeling. Conor McSorley, Humanities Teacher

A debate club on Wednesdays, built around the spoken word

Debate club follows the Big Debate Club motion for that week. Recent examples he gives are whether we can always trust what happened in history, and one on conspiracy theories.

The session has a fixed shape. Conor tells the group the motion, then plays the video, roughly six minutes long, with built-in pauses where pupils discuss a question before it moves on, and sets out the arguments for and against. That opening stretch takes about twenty minutes.

Then the clock goes on. Pupils get five to ten minutes to build their own argument, and the timer is audible, so they can hear it running down and judge their own pace, whether they are writing anything or holding it in their head.

Everyone sits round one big round table and takes the floor in turn, with Conor naming out loud whose turn it is. They can stand or stay sitting. They get about three minutes, which is what a competition allows, and he signals at two and a half. He teaches point, evidence, explain. Anyone who wants to come in during someone else's speech raises a hand and says "point of information" rather than talking over them.

Sometimes I just give the pupils the motion and I let them, I just watch, and if you give pupils a chance, generally they do have good opinions. It's just about listening to them. It's not about you saying well you're wrong or this is wrong, it's just letting the conversation flow. Conor McSorley, Humanities Teacher

At the end the group votes on the motion. There is an elected debate club captain, changed every term, and the captain gives the verdict, which is Conor's way of keeping himself out of it. The result is logged online, so pupils can see how schools around the country voted on the same motion.

Facts before opinions

The club holds a mixed set of political views and Conor does not try to flatten them. During the American election, the most divisive debate they have run, it had Trump supporters, Kamala Harris supporters and Keir Starmer supporters in the same room. He read the Democrat policies out to the Trump supporters and the Trump policies out to the Democrat supporters, and they turned out to agree on more than they expected. The one rule he imposes is sourcing.

If you want to debate something, if you want to have an opinion, have the opinion you want, but make sure you've checked the facts. Conor McSorley, Humanities Teacher

He grew up in South Armagh at the tail end of the Troubles, where people voted a certain way because of who they were rather than what was in a manifesto, and he sees the same habit in parts of Liverpool.

What changed

The club started with three or four pupils. It is now around ten, built up week by week rather than in one push.

They have been out of school with it too. Conor took a group to a mock UN climate action debate timed with COP29, alongside what he calls "bigger more established schools than ours". The assumption he is working against sits under both halves of that: which schools debate, and which pupils can.

There's opinions formed of them all. Well, they can't do that. They can't do that. I'm all about you can do whatever you want and don't let anyone tell you any different. Conor McSorley, Humanities Teacher

What Conor would say to another teacher

His advice is about persistence rather than technique, and assumes you will be told no at some point.

Don't be afraid to hear no and then keep pursuing it. If someone puts an idea down, don't just be like well they're wrong. Ask the question, well what do you think I should do? Conor McSorley, Humanities Teacher

The rest is scale. Start with a handful of pupils on one afternoon, plan it properly, and let it grow.

Constructive criticism is your best friend, it's not your worst enemy. If you truly wanted to achieve something, it'll take four or five attempts to do it. Conor McSorley, Humanities Teacher

The line he comes back to twice in the conversation works as the summary: give pupils responsibility and opportunity, and they take it.