The Bridgeton Burns Club was formed in 1870, and the inaugural Schools Competition was two years later in 1872. The Clubs two constitutional objectives are;

1. To celebrate the anniversary of the birthday of Robert Burns.

2. To encourage and cultivate knowledge of Scotland’s National Bard and also of Scottish history and literature in general, by means of a schools competition within the schools of the East End of Glasgow.

The Club has been holding an annual Schools Competition on the first Friday of December for an amazing146 years. The Club award appropriate prizes for each of the 32 different categories of the Competition at a concert for prize winners. The Concert and Prize-Giving will take place in King's Parish Church on 22nd February when 20 trophies will be presented along with silver medals for exceptional performances and £3000 of gift vouchers and cheques. The schools put these funds to great use.

The 2018 Schools Competition was held on Friday 7th December in St Mungo’s Academy where the Club again enjoyed superb support from Head Teacher Angela Milton, and Morven Weir our dedicated liaison teacher, who, along with 40 senior pupils, and the fantastic facilities management team, really helped the events run smoothly on the night.

The Bridgeton Burns Club had over 450 performers at the December Schools Competition, with over an additional 650 Art & News-Desk competitors, giving us a grand total of over 1,100 entrants from East End Glasgow primary and secondary schools.

Every participant received a medal on the night for taking part, and it was heartening to see so many happy young faces after the Competition, having performed so well, and enjoyed doing so.

Our 2016 Competition, build-up, and Prize-Giving have been filmed and made into a short documentary video by Lewis O’Neil, a St Mungo’s Academy pupil. Lewis worked on this video over his 4th and 5th years in secondary school - A quite fantastic effort from a young and talented person, about young and talented people, and what our Competition means to them.

The Bridgeton Burns Club is hugely indebted to the 150 people who voluntarily support the Schools Competition, without which we would simply not be able to stage the Competition. These volunteers are drawn from the directors, past-presidents, friends of the club, from the teaching staff and helpers of the participating schools, from the accompanists and adjudicators (some of whom are former competitors).

This year, in addition to another fantastic donation of Tunnock’s Carmel Wafers from Tunnock’s, the Co-Op has generously agreed to transport our young performers here and home again to our Anniversary Denner in their limousines. Help like this is of huge help to our young competitors, and significantly enhances and enriches their enjoyment of the Competition experience, which makes them want to do it all again next time!

To see the schedule/results of the school competition please select a year below.