STEP I

Invitation:  A personal letter from the Founder and Chief Mr. Deepak Thimaya to heads of institutions of about 2500 schools talking about the importance of our commitment to the society and the future of our nation, the role played by Verbattle in making a difference to the life and the future of a child and youth.  Though it is not imperative that only the schools that have received an invitation must participate, in the process of inviting the schools, it serves the most important purpose of intimating the school heads about impending event of Verbattle.

STEP II

Tele calling: Tele callers who are part of the team of Verbattle will call the heads of school that were already sent a letter of invitation, about the response to the invitation as well as the participation from the school.

STEP III

Delivery of Kits and visit by Verbattle Team Members: Since many schools have not been pro active in registering on their own by either downloading the forms from the Website or by enrolling their students by sending in their names, a Verbattle Kit containing Application Forms and specific publicity material along with a copy of a Film will be couriered or delivered to the school office along with a Verbattle representative meeting the principal or the concerned staff by making a personal invitation along with clarification on doubts and providing all details.

STEP IV

Enquiry through Tele callers:  All the interested schools find their no. of teams that would participate, motivate the students, and provide most information to the mentor teacher and helping in the registration process and assisting in the smooth completion of the registration.

STEP V

Team visit with the posters:  A team of Verbattle resource people visit interested schools to meet up Mentor teacher and the interested students to explain about the conduct of Verbattle, the winning secrets and also play some instructional films along with the formal Power Point Presentation.

HOW DOES THE COMPETITION HAPPEN?

Intra School Selection:  Most schools owing to the quality, reputation and format of the Verbattle competitions do not venture to send anybody or everybody unless they put them through a test and training. 

Most schools conduct Intra-school or Intra class competition in debate and speech craft to select the best team. Select intra school activities aimed at sending the best teams to Verbattle involve participation of thousands of students. 

Schools that have once participated take extra care to prepare their students after selecting the best one in the first place.  Hence it could never be a process that just because the school has not sent students that it is not interested in Verbattle.  It has certain possibilities that the school would have initiated the Verbattle activities internally to some extent with participation from a larger no. of children and perhaps only being not having much success in putting together eligible teams, may have decided not to send the teams to Verbattle.

Zonal Clamber:  Teams, after getting selected through the internal process, in some cases go through vigorous and systematic training in being prepared for Verbattle.  The school is allowed to send maximum of 5 teams fulfilling all the terms and conditions in the registration formalities.  Schools may send even 1 team or in most cases even 5 teams.  There is no compulsion about it.  The teams are restricted to 5 only to facilitate for more schools to participate and to keep a control over conduct of the event by not diluting the gravity and the frame work. 

The selected teams will have 2 members each in a team and an ideal team would consist of the members who are capable of speaking any side of the argument at the shortest notice or sometimes even without notice and immediately.  The students selected for the Zonal Clamber prepare on any one of the 50 Zonal Clamber debate statements announced on the Website.  It is compulsory that out of the two students, one student speaks defending the statement and the other, prepares to oppose the statement. 

All the teams from the Zones registered in the Zonal Clamber get the same time duration and particularly to show the ability to speak for and against the selected statement.  The purpose would be to select the top teams based on the right combination of the team, based on the sense of team members, their presentation skills, body language, voice, knowledge, vocabulary, attitude, time management, engagement of the audience and other important factors.

Skirmish:  Since the Zonal Clamber is held in 3 zones namely Bangalore, Mangalore & Hubli, to accommodate children from the districts of and around the Zonal Centers, proportional representation is accorded by way of taking into consideration the density of schools in those zones.  The total number of teams selected for the State Level is 81.  Out of which, the number of teams per zone will be decided based on density of schools and participation per zone.  It also allows opportunity for students from all the 3 zones to participate in the Verbattle State Level Skirmish.

The State Level Skirmish:It is held in Bangalore.      In the State capital 81 teams participate.  The debates happen between 3 teams at a time.  The selections of teams are on the basis of the following conditions.

The debate statement for the Skirmish:  Teams per debate will be announced 36 hours before the event.  Students need to be completely aware, well informed and insightful in all the 27 statements.  24 hours before, all teams would be announced for debate and the schedule and 2 hours before each slot of debate, the debate statement assigned to each debate,  group will be picked up by way of lotto.

In every State level Skirmish in every debate one team is selected out of the 3 teams based on the following factors:

  The teams conduct on the stage coordinate between the team members effectively and flowing use of voice,   knowledge of the subject, ability to put in facts, figures and statistics into the argument, presentation skills, appeal to the audience, employment of popular skills like geniality, non aggressive affirmations, a decent body language.

Time and Material Management:  Evidence of use and uncluttered thought, thought flow and sound logic will ensure scoring points.  Pleasing appearance would add bonus points.

The Jury consisting of 3 members in consultation with the Chief Resource person, the Founder of Verbattle, will deliberate and decide the winners per debate ensuring that the selected team qualifies based on not just a few but the average desirability in all the parameters, according to all the parameters laid down.

At the end of 27 debates conducted with 81 teams, ultimately 27 best teams are selected to move on to the Combat Stage.  The teams that are selected for the Combat stage would have been selected purely on the merit of their performance under the guide lines according to the parameters carefully in front of the scrutinizing eyes of the Jury. 

This is reason enough to believe that the selected teams for Combat must indeed be the best and capable of participating and going through this difficult phase of Verbattle Junior competition. 

Combat:For this level, the debate topics are not provided.  But, the 9 subjects are listed.         So, all the 27 selected teams must be well versed and knowledgeable in all these subjects.The purpose would be to select the top teams based on the right combination of the team, based on the sense of team members, their presentation skills, body language, voice, knowledge, vocabulary, attitude, time management, engagement of the audience and other important factors.      2 hours before each slot of debate, the debate statement is assigned to each debate. 9 teams belonging respectively to 9 subjects will be assigned to the 9 debate group by way of lotto.

Rounds per Debate:  The debates are held for the 27 teams in debates of 5 minutes each with each team getting 1 minute per round with a total of 15 minutes.    An additional round where the Mentor Teacher of the participating team will ask a question either of the opposing team with the purpose of exposing the lack of preparation, lack of knowledge or weakness in arguments.      This is one round where it could be testing the prospects of a team that may have otherwise performed very well for the 5 rounds.

Confrontation:   For this level, the debate topics are not provided.  But, the 9 subjects are listed.   So, all the 9 selected teams must be well versed, knowledgeable in all these subjects.  The purpose would be to select the top teams based on the right combination of the team, based on the sense of team members, their presentation skills, body language, voice, knowledge, vocabulary, attitude, time management, engagement of the audience and other important factors.           2 hours before each slot of debate, the debate statement assigned to each debate. 3 teams belonging respectively to 3 subjects will be assigned to the 3 debate groups by way of lotto.

The debates are held for the 9 teams in debates of 6 minutes each. With each team getting 1 minute per round.    An additional round where the Mentor Teacher of the participating team will ask a question to either of the opposing teams with the purpose of exposing the lack of preparation, lack of knowledge or weakness in arguments.      This is one round where it could be testing the prospects of a team that may have otherwise performed very well for the 6 rounds.

Face Off:For this level, the debate topics are not provided.  But, the 3 subjects are listed.   So, all the 3 selected teams must be well versed, knowledgeable in all these subjects.  The purpose would be to select the top teams based on the right combination of the team, based on the sense of team members, their presentation skills, body language, voice, knowledge, vocabulary, attitude, time management, engagement of the audience and other important factors.  2 hours before each slot of debate, the debate statement assigned to each debate.             

The debates are held for the 3 teams in debates of 6 minutes each with each team getting 1 minute per round.    An additional round where the Mentor Teacher of the participating team will ask a question to either of the opposing teams with the purpose of exposing the lack of preparation, lack of knowledge or weakness in arguments.