On Saturday 28th February, YSS held the Finals Day of our Schools' Mace debating competition. This was our biggest Finals Day ever, with schools participating from across Scotland!
You can find a full write-up of the day on our website:
youngspeakersscotland.org.uk/mace-finals-...
Our Speak Up Scotland programme hit the ground running this year, with workshops at Craigmount High School, Caldervale High School, Currie High School, Gryffe High School and Earlston High School. We wrapped up this block of sessions yesterday with a brilliant workshop at Castlemilk High School!
Last week we visited the debating club at Craigmount High School for our first Speak Up Scotland workshop of 2026. Our focus was building strong arguments. The Craigmount debaters blew us away!
This week we're visiting Gryffe High School and Broughton High School. We can't wait!
It was wonderful to see so many Speak Up Scotland schools taking part over the course of the day - for many this was their very first competition.
Rebecca M from Craigmount (pictured), our Best Speaker, attended a Speak Up Scotland workshop the day before the St Andrew's Debate!
Congratulations also to Stewart's Melville, our runners-up, and to Rebecca M from Craigmount, our best speaker!
On Saturday, 29th November we ran another edition of our annual St Andrew's Debate.
After a day of brilliant debating, Broxburn Academy was crowned the winners of the Grand Final, delivering compelling arguments on the motion "This House Supports Nationalism".
We had a fabulous Speak Up Scotland workshop with the debaters at Drummond Community High School today! See our website for information on how your school can get involved.
After an exceptionally competitive trials, we are thrilled to announce the five speakers who will be representing Scotland at the 2026 World Schools Debating Championships in Kenya!
The following schools will take part in our junior final:
Gryffe
Aberdeen Grammar
Mary Erskine
Stewart's Melville
Nairn
The following schools progressed:
Dingwall
Hyndland
Broxburn
Aberdeen Grammar
Currie
Marr
Grantown
Stewart’s Melville
Nairn
Woodfarm
Dollar
Banchory
Invergordon
Douglas
Thurso
Millburn
Congratulations to all the schools that made it through to the Finals Day of or Schools’ Mace Debating Competition, which will be held next year.
This was one of our most competitive set of preliminary rounds ever, and all competing schools should be extremely proud!
Your nomination could help Young Speakers Scotland win £1,000 from the Benefact Group’s Movement for Good!
It takes less than a minute to support our work helping young people across Scotland find their voice.
Link here 👉 movementforgood.com/index.php?cn...
A long overdue island trip for Speak Up Scotland today, with back-to-back debating workshops at Arran High School. We can't wait to return!
We were saddened to learn of the death of Brian Gorman, who served as Director of the English-Speaking Union in Scotland during the 1980s. Brian played a key role in strengthening the culture of debating in Scotland, expanding opportunities for young people and building lasting international connections. His energy and commitment helped sustain debating in schools across Scotland and laid important foundations for the work we do today. Debaters across Scotland owe Brian a great debt for his invaluable contributions.
The teams progressing from our Aberdeenshire heat are Aberdeen Grammar School and Banchory Academy. We still have a Dingwall and Ayrshire heat to go before all the finalists are confirmed!
bsky.app/profile/youn...
Thurso High School will join the schools who qualified for the Finals Day at our Edinburgh heat last Saturday: Currie Community High School, Broxburn Academy Hyndland Academy, Stewart's Melville, Dingwall Academy and Dollar Academy. Well done to all the schools who took part!
We had a brilliant day up north running a heat of our Schools Mace competition for pupils from Caithness and Orkney. Well done to Thurso for winning and earning a prestigious spot at our Finals Day next year!
We’re in the Borders today for a back-to-back workshop extravaganza! We’ll start the day with the debaters at Earlston High School and then move on to Berwickshire High School for another exciting workshop. We can’t wait!
Teams are hard at work preparing for round 3 - this house would make teachers’ salaries dependant on the academic performance of their pupils.
The prepared topic is: “This house believes that governments should actively use social media influencers as part of their communications strategy”
Teams will take part in 3 rounds today. They already know one of their topics - the other two will be given to them one hour before their debate.
Today is the first heat of our Schools Mace debating competition! We’re in Banchory, where 12 teams from around Aberdeenshire will compete for 3 spots at the prestigious Finals Day.
Today our Speak Up Scotland programme was at Linlithgow Academy, delivering a debating workshop to a club that’s going places! 🗣️
See our website for info on how your school can take part.
We ended our week in Motherwell, running a Speak Up Scotland workshop with the incredible debaters at Our Lady’s High School! ✨
We were in Midlothian today, running a Speak Up Scotland workshop with the pupils at St David’s RC High School!
Thank you to all the pupils who came to our training day at Currie High School. A great start to what’s sure to be a thrilling year of debating in Scotland!
We’re kicking off our 2024-2025 Speak Up Scotland programme today with a workshop in Arbroath.
Our free debating workshops help pupils gain confidence and critical thinking skills. See our website for details on how your school can get involved!
Are you interested in debating for Scotland? Applications for the 2025/2026 team are now open!
For more details about the various streams and a link to the application form please email scottishdebatingteam@gmail.com.
Application forms are due by 13:00 on Sunday, 7th September 2025.
This year our Speak Up Scotland programme delivered 60 workshops to over 1,000 young people around Scotland, from Thurso to the Borders. And we’re just getting started!
We concluded this year’s Speak Up Scotland programme today with a workshop with the brilliant S3 debaters at James Young High School in West Lothian.
Thank you to all the wonderful schools that took part in the programme this year! We can’t wait to see you after the Summer break ☀️
