World Schools Style debate

Combination of the British Parliamentary and Australia Asian debating formats
World Schools Style debating (or WSS) is a combination of the British Parliamentary and Australia Asian debating formats, designed to meet the needs of the World Schools Debating Championships tournament. Each debate comprises eight speeches delivered by two teams of three members, representing the Proposition and Opposition sides. The first six speeches are eight minutes in duration, with each team then finishing up by giving a four minute concluding reply speech. Teams are given 30 to 60 minutes to prepare for their speeches.

During any speech except the reply speeches, and not during the first and last minutes of the first six speeches, members of the opposing team may offer points of information to briefly interject a point that the speaker must immediately respond to. The speaker holding the Floor is not obliged to accept all the points of information offered to them, but is likely to be marked down by adjudicators if they do not accept any. Speakers delivering points of information are expected to keep them to 15 seconds or less. Although a speaker's points of information do not have a direct effect on their mark, a mechanism named the "POI Adjuster" has been introduced in recent years: when the quality of a speaker's POIs is significantly different (better or worse) from the quality of their speech, the judge may add or subtract one or two marks from their overall speaker score. The first and last minute of each main speech, as well as the entire duration of reply speeches, are "protected time", meaning that no points of information may be offered. Sometimes the reply debaters whole 4 minutes debate might be protected from Point of informations.

The World Schools Style of debating is used not only at the World Schools Debating Championships, but also at a number of national and regional high school level debating competitions around the world. At some of these tournaments, the format is varied slightly. For example, at some competitions, the length of speeches is reduced to five or six minutes for main speeches and three minutes for reply speeches. Some tournaments intended for novice level debaters also do not allow Points of Information. In the early years of the World Schools Debating Championships, there was a two minute break between the main speeches and the reply speeches to allow the team members to confer, though this is no longer the case. However, some national or regional World Schools Style tournaments still have this two minute break, and in some cases members of the team's squad for the competition who do not speak in the debate are allowed to come out of the audience to confer with the speakers during these two minutes.