Coaching

Discussions regarding the 70,000 Free Chess Sets for Schools in England.
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Paul Stimpson
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Coaching

Post by Paul Stimpson » Fri Nov 28, 2008 12:47 pm

From Report on ECF Board Meeting No. 28
The role of Assistant Coaches was discussed.
Could Andrew expand on what this role is? Most School chess clubs are run by either a Teacher or a Teaching Assistant. Some more adavanced ones have outside help. Charles Wood said the idea was to run this through extended schools, this was a route into schools. What is the current situation on this?
ARM anticipated that there would be one coach per school who would be qualified by passing level 3 of the Certificate of Merit.
Is the Level 3 exam a long term goal for the coaches? I am just a bit concerned this may be a little too much for the vast majority of helpers who will be setting up these school clubs to start with.
SR suggested an online course for the schools package. The qualification would be open to others.
On Stewart Reubens point I think having the exam online would be a fantastic idea. If you could set up a national online network of school clubs it could open up all sorts of opportunities.

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John Upham
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Re: Coaching

Post by John Upham » Fri Nov 28, 2008 2:43 pm

SR suggested an online course for the schools package. The qualification would be open to others.

This is in hand. Under the Management (formerly Direction) of Andrew Martin, myself and Ken Coates have been awarded a contract by the ECF to develop the newly named Certificate of Merit on-line (CoM) scheme.

I am responsible for the web delivered application and Ken is managing the examination content working closely with Andrew.

This is an important component of the CfS (Chess for Schools) project and I am proud to contribute to it. Currently, I am designing the database structure and will follow this with the core code.

I anticipate we will enter a User Acceptance Testing (UAT) phase during March - April 2009.

I will provide an update when there is something tangible to report.
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andrew martin

Re: Coaching

Post by andrew martin » Fri Nov 28, 2008 3:33 pm

I will expand on John's comments.

The idea is to follow the chess sets into schools with some sort of coaching assistance. After discussion wth Ken and John we have devised a online testing scheme,the ECF Certificate of Merit. There are three levels, not especially difficult, dealing with the basics.

I went to Hamburg to record a DVD at Chessbase HQ and we now have 2000 of these sitting in the ECF office. More can be made very quickly if necessary, dependant on the number of schools or individuals who are interested. Children will be able to take exams online at the new website and receive certificates and encouragement at each level.

A new title of ECF Assistant Coach will be created. I thought existing school teachers or motivated parents might be able to obtain the title and start coaching in the schools right away.


Criteria:

1) CRB Enhanced

2) 2 professional references

3) 90% pass in a newly-created Assistant Coach exam, based on the Certificate of Merit.


The Assistant Coach might only be able to coach beginners, but it was the only way I could see we would be able to cope with the presumed demand. When this scheme was first thought of, 25.000 schools were still in the mix.

The Certificate of Excellence as developed by Peter and Matthew Turner is excellent as it stands, but it involves written testing and nobody would be able to cope with 20000 schools x 10 kids in each school taking an exam.


It is intended that the new website will be ready on March 1st and it should be possible to take the Level 1/2/3 testing immediately.



Andrew

Paul Stimpson
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Re: Coaching

Post by Paul Stimpson » Fri Nov 28, 2008 3:52 pm

myself and Ken Coates have been awarded a contract by the ECF
Is this a formal contract, in terms of for a fee and an agreed timescale? Or is it likely to be a collaboration effort/Opensource effort?

The reason I ask is I seem to recall a few people on this forum with skills in this area wanting to contribute to something on the Chess For Schools Project.

Paul Stimpson
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Re: Coaching

Post by Paul Stimpson » Fri Nov 28, 2008 3:59 pm

The idea is to follow the chess sets into schools with some sort of coaching assistance. After discussion wth Ken and John we have devised a online testing scheme,the ECF Certificate of Merit. There are three levels, not especially difficult, dealing with the basics.
Andrew, Thanks for this, you have cleared up my misunderstanding. I assumed the CofM was just an online version of the CofE and hence the concern of needing a level 3 pass.

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Re: Coaching

Post by Michele Clack » Fri Nov 28, 2008 6:31 pm

This assistant coach qualification seems to be a good idea. When I first read about the extended schools proposals I looked into registering as a chess coach with the ecf as the proposals suggested that all coaches involved with afterschools clubs would have to be qualified in some way. I want to carry on taking the school chess club that I started for my nephew at our local first school (ages5-9) and still run.

Full coach status didn't seem quite right and there was nothing in between. Since Worcestershire is always the last to do anything ( for some reason they get less funding for education than virtually any council in England - they seem to spend all their time selling off playing fields in Redditch to fund schools in the rest of the county!) I haven't gone any further with the coach thing.

I understand that there is a lot to do at the moment, but I would like to see this assistant coach qualification being taken further. It sounds like it would mainly cover the basics of chess. I play quite a bit of competitive chess in the Birmingham League, Worcester County League, Worcs & District League, County U100 and U125 competitions and the occasional weekend congress. So (IN THEORY) I shouldn't have any diificulty with the proposed exam. I would love to get better at actually teaching chess. Something that would help with coaching would be great.

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John Upham
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Re: Coaching

Post by John Upham » Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:57 pm

Paul Stimpson wrote:
myself and Ken Coates have been awarded a contract by the ECF
Is this a formal contract, Yes

in terms of for a fee and an agreed timescale? yes to both

Or is it likely to be a collaboration effort/Opensource effort? We are using OpenSource technologies.

The reason I ask is I seem to recall a few people on this forum with skills in this area wanting to contribute to something on the Chess For Schools Project.
This is entirely possible. I will leave this to Andrew to coordinate.
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Matthew Turner
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Re: Coaching

Post by Matthew Turner » Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:38 am

I have some misgivings about the way this looks. One can read it as this

1. Andrew Martin is appointed as an unpaid Director of the ECF

2. Andrew's friends are awarded a paid contract (presumably without a tendering process)

3. Andrew resigns after a very short period in office

This is nothing personal about the people involved, but I don't think it creates the right impression

andrew martin

Re: Coaching

Post by andrew martin » Wed Dec 03, 2008 3:32 pm

Hello Matt,

Can I just say with regard to my 'friends' that John Upham is actually an ECF official, on the ICT Committee and Ken Coates is ideally placed as a former teacher to get the wording of the online questions correct in relation to the age groups of the children.

It also made sense to me to work with people with whom I could easily meet to discuss any aspects of the task and who I could rely on to deliver a project on time. They are both extremely competant.

Thats why I asked them

Andrew

Matthew Turner
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Re: Coaching

Post by Matthew Turner » Wed Dec 03, 2008 5:35 pm

I am not disputing that John and Ken are very well qualified. I am questioning the process, if the sequence of events is as I outlined then to me it does not LOOK good. Surely, the deficiency of the process is highlighted because now Andrew has resigned then the superficial case for awarding a contract to smeone who Andrew wanted to work with is blown out of the water. What if the next Director (if there is one) does not want to work with John and Ken?

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Ben Purton
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Re: Coaching

Post by Ben Purton » Wed Dec 03, 2008 5:38 pm

Most Football Managers when they quit or leave a club for whatever reason. The Assitant manager and coaching staff usually dont fit with the next manager.

Ben
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John Upham
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Re: Coaching

Post by John Upham » Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:02 pm

Matthew Turner wrote:What if the next Director (if there is one) does not want to work with John and Ken?
A professional, forward thinking organisation would not allow any personal difference to cloud the judgements of Directors. I'm confident that the CEO would stamp his / her authority and ensure the smooth running of the organisation that he or she was running.

I very much, (and I am being serious for once here :roll: ) hope that you (MT) will give strong consideration to being nominated for the role of DCfS. I trust I can speak for many members of this non-existant forum in commending this role to you.

J.
Last edited by John Upham on Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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andrew martin

Re: Coaching

Post by andrew martin » Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:06 pm

I must admit Matt, your post has me a bit stumped. What doesnt look good about what?

Can you be more specific?

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Carl Hibbard
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Re: Coaching

Post by Carl Hibbard » Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:10 pm

andrew martin wrote:I must admit Matt, your post has me a bit stumped. What doesnt look good about what?

Can you be more specific?
There should have been a tendering/best price type process in place for something like this even if "other" factors are taken into consideration
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Carl Hibbard

Matthew Turner
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Re: Coaching

Post by Matthew Turner » Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:13 pm

John,
You say a professional, forward thinking organisation would not allow personal differences to cloud judgments, but by the same token surely personal friendships should not cloud judgments either. Are you then criticising Andrew for awarding a contract (without a tendering process) to yourself and Ken?

There is zero chance of my name going forward for the DCfS post, I'm not sure that the post even exists any more.

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