Phil Speaks
Debating should be for everybody. For kids, it can help develop vital communication skills and encourage independent thought. The Phil strives to bring debating beyond the confines of our college society and encourage secondary school students to get involved. That why PhilSpeaks, founded in 2008 has been bringing top quality debating to senior secondary school students of all backgrounds and experience levels for near 20 years. This program provides students with an opportunity to develop important skills as debaters while discovering a little of life at Trinity.
We can provide the expertise, environment and encouragement to allow students the opportunity to play around with ideas, to discuss the bigger issues, and to grow in confidence in both these ideas and their ability to articulate them. We invite all senior secondary school students to take part in the PhilSpeaks Debating Initiative - just get in contact with our schools officer to get all the up to date information about our competitions!
Schools Opportunities
These are some of our annual schools events: follow @tcdphilspeaks on Instagram to find out more about these events and when they’ll be taking place!
Kate Maher Cup
The annual Kate Maher Cup is a speech competition for students who identify as women or as a gender-minority. Each year, students are tasked to record them-selves giving a speech on a topic, chosen by our very own schools convener, that is related to feminism. If you want to watch the next American Ferrera feminism speech, look no further than the Kate Maher Cup.
Senior Schools Mace
It’s the big one. With Free pizza. This year the annual Phil Speaks Senior Mace will be back bigger and better than ever! It will take place in Hilary term and will last over two days. We will have more teams, schools, debaters, and pizza than ever before! This is our biggest volunteering event of the year and we really need your help to pull it off! You will be drowning in pizza. It is a great way to encourage teenagers to get involved in discourse, and is a lots of fun hanging out with your Phil phriends.