We are delighted to announce the winners of our schools competitions 2013. The winners will be presented with their prizes by the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Rt Hon John Bercow MP at the end of February. The prizes were judged by ourselves, our Trustees, and members of Parliament’s Education Service.

The 11-14 year old competition asked entrants to write a speech as if they were a member of the 1536 ‘Reformation Parliament’, responding to the many religious changes passed by Henry VIII. The quality of entries was extremely high, and in the end we could not choose between two excellent entries: Ami Ganatra, of Leicester Grammar School, and Jessica Welchman of Fairlands Middle School, Somerset. Both entries showed an impressive amount of knowledge and understanding of these events. We also highly commended James McKell, of Mount St Mary’s College Derbyshire, for his fine entry.

Our A level competition asked for an essay on an aspect of British and Irish parliamentary history. This year’s winner was James Heale of Kingston Grammar School, who entered with ‘To what extent have backbench groups influenced the personalities and policies of the Conservative Party, 1945-75?’. The judges were again impressed with James’ level of detail and strong argument. We also highly commended Jenny Tran, of Preston Lodge High School, East Lothian, for her excellent essay: ‘To what extent was the women’s role in the Great War responsible for their emancipation in 1918?’

For more detail on our winners’ submissions and their prize, see our latest blogpost.

Details of the 2014 competition will be announced shortly. For more, and for our specially-written schools resources, keep following our schools section.