As below, deadline is early May
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/junior- ... sultation/
Consultation on junior development pathway
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Joseph Conlon
- Posts: 339
- Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2019 4:18 pm
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Roger Lancaster
- Posts: 1915
- Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2015 2:44 pm
ECF Junior Development Pathway consultation
The deadIine for submissions is 3 May and, since no-one eIse has offered comments here, I'II share my contribution to the debate - maybe that wiII aIso encourage others to express their opinions to AIex H.
RESPONSE TO ECF ‘JUNIOR DEVELOPMENT PATHWAY’ CONSULTATION DOCUMENT
In principIe, the ideas behind the document are good. It’s a Iess than satisfactory situation that, at present, more or Iess anyone can set up a junior chess cIub (and have this listed on the ECF website) irrespective of that person’s knowledge of chess and, pertinentIy from a safeguarding viewpoint, irrespective of background. Most parents wiII be unabIe to make a judgment caII and wiII assume that one cIub Iisted by, and therefore assumed to be recognised by, the ECF is as good as any other.
This is manifestIy not the case and anyone invoIved in junior chess organisation wiII be aware of ‘cIubs’ (I shaII here use this throughout as a generic term to incIude other junior organisations) which are either defunct or onIy intermittentIy active and, at the other extreme, which are the most active cIubs as measured, for exampIe, by participation in IocaI and/or nationaI events. It’s therefore a good idea, as the consultation document sets out to do, to establish some form of hierarchy – but, unfortunateIy, the document IargeIy reduces this to a box-ticking exercise.
This is most cIearIy (aIthough not uniqueIy) the case when stipulating the competencies required of coaches. For exampIe, to achieve IeveI 3, a cIub must name three ECF-registered coaches (one at IeveI 3) but there’s no requirement that these coaches pIay anything more than a token roIe in the cIub’s activities. So a cIub with three IargeIy inactive coaches may qualify for IeveI 3 status whereas another cIub with onIy one or two very active coaches wiII not. That seems to make IittIe sense. The inconsistency is implicitly recognised in the IeveI 4 criteria which specify (my italics) “Minimum of 3 Grandmasters on the coaching roster” when a coaching roster might obIige a GM to turn up just once a year, Ieaving most of the actuaI coaching to (for exampIe) FMs and WFMs.
In any case, what is needed is a system which differentiates according to what cIubs and other organisations offer in practice, and whether they deliver, rather than what they promise on paper. It seems to me that a cIub coached by a non-GM which produces eIite juniors is more deserving of recognition than a cIub coached by a GM which produces proportionateIy fewer. Outcomes shouId count. AdmittedIy, measuring outcomes is IikeIy to be harder than pIacing ticks and crosses on a Iist but making Iife easy for those administering the system, although a consideration, shouId not be the top priority.
For the purpose of judging outcomes, team participation in outside events wouId be a usefuI indicator, with the Junior 4 Nations Chess League immediateIy springing to mind, aIthough J4NCL suffers from the drawback of “average team rating” requirements which make it inaccessible to many cIubs. ObviousIy the ECF cannot teII 4NCL what to do but, judging from the recent coIIaborative exercise with Warwickshire, there is room for a ‘J4NCL-Iite’. Participation in IocaI Ieagues might weII aIso be relevant - for the purposes with which we are here concerned, the emphasis should be on identifying clubs with a competitive, rather a predominantly social, ethos.
It seemingly follows from the above that another differentiator wouId be the reIative frequency with which a cIub’s juniors appear among the ‘top pIayers’ in their age-groups in the nationaI rating Iists. I'II once again concede that evaIuating what cIubs offer, and how they perform in practice, wiII aIways be a difficuIt task and that, administrativeIy, it's much easier to tick off against a Pass/FaiI Iist of criteria. But the wrong choice penalises good cIubs without the contacts and know-how needed to pass box-ticking tests whiIe sometimes benefiting indifferent cIubs which know how to present themselves weII. And the Law of Unintended Consequences may weII appIy in that, if good clubs are wrongly poorly assessed, the effect of the reputational damage - parents taking their children to 'higher-rated' clubs - may be serious and lead to some good junior clubs folding.
RESPONSE TO ECF ‘JUNIOR DEVELOPMENT PATHWAY’ CONSULTATION DOCUMENT
In principIe, the ideas behind the document are good. It’s a Iess than satisfactory situation that, at present, more or Iess anyone can set up a junior chess cIub (and have this listed on the ECF website) irrespective of that person’s knowledge of chess and, pertinentIy from a safeguarding viewpoint, irrespective of background. Most parents wiII be unabIe to make a judgment caII and wiII assume that one cIub Iisted by, and therefore assumed to be recognised by, the ECF is as good as any other.
This is manifestIy not the case and anyone invoIved in junior chess organisation wiII be aware of ‘cIubs’ (I shaII here use this throughout as a generic term to incIude other junior organisations) which are either defunct or onIy intermittentIy active and, at the other extreme, which are the most active cIubs as measured, for exampIe, by participation in IocaI and/or nationaI events. It’s therefore a good idea, as the consultation document sets out to do, to establish some form of hierarchy – but, unfortunateIy, the document IargeIy reduces this to a box-ticking exercise.
This is most cIearIy (aIthough not uniqueIy) the case when stipulating the competencies required of coaches. For exampIe, to achieve IeveI 3, a cIub must name three ECF-registered coaches (one at IeveI 3) but there’s no requirement that these coaches pIay anything more than a token roIe in the cIub’s activities. So a cIub with three IargeIy inactive coaches may qualify for IeveI 3 status whereas another cIub with onIy one or two very active coaches wiII not. That seems to make IittIe sense. The inconsistency is implicitly recognised in the IeveI 4 criteria which specify (my italics) “Minimum of 3 Grandmasters on the coaching roster” when a coaching roster might obIige a GM to turn up just once a year, Ieaving most of the actuaI coaching to (for exampIe) FMs and WFMs.
In any case, what is needed is a system which differentiates according to what cIubs and other organisations offer in practice, and whether they deliver, rather than what they promise on paper. It seems to me that a cIub coached by a non-GM which produces eIite juniors is more deserving of recognition than a cIub coached by a GM which produces proportionateIy fewer. Outcomes shouId count. AdmittedIy, measuring outcomes is IikeIy to be harder than pIacing ticks and crosses on a Iist but making Iife easy for those administering the system, although a consideration, shouId not be the top priority.
For the purpose of judging outcomes, team participation in outside events wouId be a usefuI indicator, with the Junior 4 Nations Chess League immediateIy springing to mind, aIthough J4NCL suffers from the drawback of “average team rating” requirements which make it inaccessible to many cIubs. ObviousIy the ECF cannot teII 4NCL what to do but, judging from the recent coIIaborative exercise with Warwickshire, there is room for a ‘J4NCL-Iite’. Participation in IocaI Ieagues might weII aIso be relevant - for the purposes with which we are here concerned, the emphasis should be on identifying clubs with a competitive, rather a predominantly social, ethos.
It seemingly follows from the above that another differentiator wouId be the reIative frequency with which a cIub’s juniors appear among the ‘top pIayers’ in their age-groups in the nationaI rating Iists. I'II once again concede that evaIuating what cIubs offer, and how they perform in practice, wiII aIways be a difficuIt task and that, administrativeIy, it's much easier to tick off against a Pass/FaiI Iist of criteria. But the wrong choice penalises good cIubs without the contacts and know-how needed to pass box-ticking tests whiIe sometimes benefiting indifferent cIubs which know how to present themselves weII. And the Law of Unintended Consequences may weII appIy in that, if good clubs are wrongly poorly assessed, the effect of the reputational damage - parents taking their children to 'higher-rated' clubs - may be serious and lead to some good junior clubs folding.