Chess in Schools.....in England

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Andrew Martin
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Chess in Schools.....in England

Post by Andrew Martin » Sun Aug 17, 2014 10:28 am

http://cis.fide.com/images/stories/Glob ... _6.5mb.pdf

The link takes you to a document which Kevin O'Connell and friends have put a lot of work into. Teaching chess in every school clearly widens the talent pool from which the best players eventually emerge. English chess in particular is just getting older, with a clear slowing down of new talent coming through. When was our last new Grandmaster?

I don't see England mentioned much in the document, other than to briefly mention Chess in Schools and Communities and the UK Chess Challenge, both of which lie outside the ECF. To regenerate chess in England, does the ECF need to embrace this FIDE project, learn from it and work with it? Compare our current situation with Turkey,for instance.

What do we need to do to get the Dept of Education to recognize chess in the same way?

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Chess in Schools.....in England

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Aug 17, 2014 10:45 am

Andrew Martin wrote:English chess in particular is just getting older, with a clear slowing down of new talent coming through. When was our last new Grandmaster?
Read the document carefully. It isn't about creating future club players and Grandmasters. Rather it is teaching chess for the sake of having something to teach and if they all give up chess at the age of 12, the programme is still a success.

The BCF had a "chess in schools" programme from the 1950s onwards with the Sunday Times competition, which eventually paid massive dividends with the chess boom of the 1970s. More recently Basman's chess challenge which has been running for getting on for twenty years has at least kept alive the notion of chess in schools and that inter school chess is a valid form of inter school sport and activity.

Michael Flatt
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Re: Chess in Schools.....in England

Post by Michael Flatt » Sun Aug 17, 2014 11:25 am

It is an interesting and inspiring document.

Having become involved in teaching chess in Primary Schools as an in-curriculum Schools in Chess initiative and separately as an After School Club activity, it is clear to me that whether or not chess gets a foothold in a school is very much in the hands of the Head Teacher, Board of Governors and parents.

Schools are already overloaded with dictats from the Department of Education and a regime of career-influencing Ofsted inspections, so I think that trying to sell this initiative to the DoE would not be successful. Even if DoE did take it up that does not necessarily guarantee success in schools.

In the UK we have an aversion to Official bodies and we tend to do things rather differently. The fact that Chess in Schools and Communities and the UK Chess Challenge are not official ECF initiatives, although the individuals involved in them are ECF members, merely highlights the different way things are done in the UK.

Andrew Martin
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Re: Chess in Schools.....in England

Post by Andrew Martin » Sun Aug 17, 2014 12:21 pm

Surely if we want to make significant improvements, we have to look at the way other countries are doing things and learn from them.

Michael Flatt
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Re: Chess in Schools.....in England

Post by Michael Flatt » Sun Aug 17, 2014 12:59 pm

Andrew Martin wrote:Surely if we want to make significant improvements, we have to look at the way other countries are doing things and learn from them.
Yes, I accept that and publicising the FIDE document is one step in doing this.

But, what are the objectives of promoting chess in schools?

They are many and varied:
(i) To promote chess as a purely competitive activity (i.e a sport),
(ii) As a safe, mentally challenging and absorbing hobby,
(iii) As an educational tool to develop an individuals thinking skills
(iv) As a means of gaining experience in planning and decision making, etc

To many the reason to avoid chess mirrors their attitude to 'difficult' but essential academic subjects, such as Maths and Physics.

How do people view the fact that this year's winner of Channel 4's Child Genius is a chess player?

Andrew Martin
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Re: Chess in Schools.....in England

Post by Andrew Martin » Sun Aug 17, 2014 8:45 pm

Michael,

Aside from the benefits you mention, a coordinated Chess in Schools project would surely in time create lots and lots of strong players, which we are simply not doing at the moment.

We have many talented kids, don't get me wrong, but nothing like other countries which have the CIS program already in place.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Chess in Schools.....in England

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Aug 17, 2014 9:12 pm

Andrew Martin wrote:We have many talented kids, don't get me wrong, but nothing like other countries which have the CIS program already in place.
I had the impression that the CIS program was all about chess for the under 10s. That's been a focus in England for many years without resulting in hordes of players at the age of eighteen. A focus on chess at secondary schools in the 1950s and 1960s was far more successful in generating adult players. But I don't actually think that's the point of the CIS program, which is to use chess as an educational device. Other games or pastimes might work just as well.

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