Welcome to The Leeds Salon

The Leeds Salon is a public discussion forum founded in February 2009. The Salon organises discussions around political, cultural and scientific issues, with the aim of challenging any orthodoxies along the way, defending and developing the legacy of the Enlightenment and, above all, providing a space where free speech can take place. Find out more.

salon & school debating news

The next Leeds Salon will be spring 2025.

Sixth Form Debating Competition 2024

Wednesday 27th November the Royal Armouries Museum (Leeds) hosted its second annual sixth form debating competition in partnership with The Leeds Salon, and this year sponsored by leading transatlantic law firm Womble Bond Dickinson (Leeds).

The competition involved 6 schools competing to be crowned 2024 champions – Bradford Grammar, Guiseley School, Notre Dame Sixth Form College, Pudsey Grammar, St Mary’s Menston and The Grammar School at Leeds.

The school were divided into two groups of three. Bradford Grammar and Notre Dame won their groups and, after battling it out in a final debate on ‘Britain should pay reparations for its colonial past’, the judges voted 2-to-1 in favour of Notre Dame Catholic Sixth Form Collage to become Royal Armouries 2024 champions (pictured left).

So, congratulation to Notre Dame and commiserations, but well done to, to Bradford Grammar for making it such a closely fought final.

There were also three Royal Armouries individual prizes awarded to the students who most stood out to our team of individual judges:

Best Individual: Orin Mabe of Notre Dame Sixth Form College (centre).
Highly Commended Individual: Iris Podesta of Guiseley School.
Commended Individual: Zainab Mahmood of Bradford Grammar.

There was also a separate Leeds Salon Individual Prize awarded to the person who best represents the spirit of Enlightenment inquiry by asking lots of good, incisive questions, and this was won by Jamie White of Guiseley School.

Prize Sponsorship was provided by the Interdisciplinary Ethics Applied (IDEA) Centre of the University of Leeds. And the competition used the format and topic guides of Debating Matters.

Details can be seen here.