Tournament Overview
Joining a tournament prep class means joining the Kudos team. Almost all of our team members began their Kudos career by first taking a survey class. The ideally prepared student will have joined us in 3rd grade and taken the elementary survey level one class, will have completed the survey level 2 class in fourth grade, and will have taken the elementary public forum class in 5thgrade, before joining the competition team as a 6th grader. Of course we understand that not all students begin as third graders; thus, it is sufficient to complete one year of survey class before joining tournament prep. On rare occasions, experienced or unusually talented students may join the team directly, following assessment.
So what’s the big deal about joining the team? Kudos began competing against other schools in the fall of 2010. Since then, our students have accumulated over 200 trophies, medals and certificates, including an astonishing 41 first place awards. In June of 2012, our students won the middle school national championship in public forum debate in Indianapolis. Additionally, Kudos was one of only 3 schools to receive an overall school of excellence award at this national tournament. The other two such winners were private school forensic juggernauts, with large teams and extensive histories of success. The Kudos team, by contrast, is still young. We have built our high school program from the success of our middle school students. The oldest of our high school competitors are now just sophomores, and are already achieving at a high level against high school circuit debate competition. It is unprecedented for a team to achieve so much success, so quickly, and is a testament to passion and competence of our coaches and kids, and to the fundamental soundness of the Kudos program architecture.
