CEISTEAN BHITHEANTA

See What is the Mòd?

Find information on venue, dates and deadlines here.

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The Royal National Mòd takes place in October. It is held in a different town or city in Scotland each year. In 2024, it is in Oban. 

Entering the Glasgow Local Mòd does not enter you into the Royal National Mòd - if you want to enter the Royal National Mòd, you must do this separately via ancommun.co.uk. The deadline for entering the Royal National Mòd is before the Glasgow Local Mòd takes place - so you can't wait until after the Glasgow Local Mòd to enter.

Your child can enter as many competitions as they like, but preparing for Mòd competitions takes a fair bit of practice, so don’t overdo it! 

Find information here.

Information is on each competition page.

For individual competitions, there may be some opportunities to practise in school, but this will be at the discretion of the school and class teacher. Most of the preparation for a Mòd is done at home. The audio files mentioned on some of the competition pages are really helpful.

Judges award gold, silver and bronze medals for each individual competition, and every child gets a feedback sheet from the judges. 

The judges' decisions are final - judging a Mòd is difficult, and not everyone will agree on the result. Some children, and parents, might be upset, but we would ask everyone to respect the judges’ decisions. 

Most children wear school uniform to perform at the Mòd. If your child is performing in a choir, the conductor will let them know what to wear.

We will issue a timetable before the Mòd, with times of all competitions. We need to wait until all entries are in before we can start scheduling competitions - so it will likely be early June before we can confirm the timetable.

Don't worry, this happens a lot at the Mòd. We do our best to avoid it but given the number of children and competitions involved, some competitions will overlap. It is really important that you notify each competition steward for each room they are due to be at, before the time they are due to perform. We can hold the competition open if we know they are definitely on their way. We might ask your child to perform in a different order from the schedule to help keep things moving along.

If your child might be late getting to a competition (for example, because they are taking part in another competition), you must notify the competition steward for the room they are due to be at, before the time they are due to perform. We can hold the competition open if we know they are definitely on their way. We might ask your child to perform in a different order from the schedule to help keep things moving along.

Most individual competitions take place in classrooms. Some solo instrument competitions might be in the assembly hall. Volunteers will help you find your competition room on the day.

Choirs, battle of the bands and fiddle groups will be in the assembly hall.

Children perform for the judges, other competitors, parents and other spectators.

The size of the audience depends on the number of other competitors - some are very small; others much larger.

That’s no problem! Some children need a little bit of encouragement to perform, but then really enjoy it. Other children decide it’s not for them - and that’s totally fine! 

If they want to withdraw in advance, please let us know.

If any of the Mòd rules or arrangements cause your child any difficulties due to a disability, additional support need or for another reason, please let us know and we can consider whether adjustments are appropriate.