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 amazing 152 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 28th February 2025 when 20 trophies will be presented along with silver medals for exceptional performances and over £4,000 of gift vouchers and payments to children and schools.

The 2025 Schools Competition was held on Friday 6th December in St Mungo’s Academy where the Club again enjoyed superb support from the 20 plus schools participating, Doigs the Coach hire company and Alex Graham Caterers and the fantastic facilities management team, really helped the events run smoothly on the night. Our thanks to Joan McEachen and the Schools Competition team.

The Bridgeton Burns Club has over 450 performers enter the December Schools Competition, with over an additional 250 Art & News-Desk competitors, often 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 2024 Competition, build-up, and 2025 Prize-Giving have pictures from schools can be found on facebook and twitter. In 2018 it was made into a short documentary video by Lewis O’Neil, a St Mungo’s Academy pupil-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 due to another fantastic donations and support of patrons listed on this website our young performers are transported to and our Anniversary Denner in 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 see our brochures