It’s been a busy summer at the ESU as we get ready for the 2017-18 session. We hope this year will be an exciting one, as we partner with new sponsors and develop bigger and better projects!
In August, we opened entries to our Schools’ Mace competition. The Schools’ Mace is the oldest and largest debating competition for schools in the UK and Ireland. Working in teams of two, pupils compete in a 3-round competition across the school year, followed by a semi-final and Final. Teams debate a wide variety of topics; last year’s motions included ‘This House would abolish the House of Lords’ and ‘This House believes that political parties are bad for democracy’, among others. We’re working on the motions for this year’s competition right now.
We’re delighted to once again run the St Andrew’s Day Debate. This one-day competition at the Scottish Parliament invites school pupils and university students from across Scotland to team up and compete for the chance to win the Grand Final. Applications are open; if you’d like your school to attend, you can find the application form under Schools’ Programmes/St Andrew’s Day Debating Tournament.
In other news, Gallery 23 (based at our Edinburgh headquarters) held a fantastic exhibition during the Edinburgh Fringe. Entitled ‘Queer Pop’, the exhibition explored and celebrated work by LGBTQIA* artists.
We hope you’re as excited as we are for the 2017-18 school year! We’ll be updating this blog regularly, so keep an eye out for all our latest news.
