Springfield House Chess Club
Since 2021 Springfield House School has been working in collaboration with the national charity Chess in Schools and Communities. They have very kindly donated some chess sets and other resources to the school which means that we have been able to make chess part of our enrichment offer. To support the rollout of chess within school, I have successfully trained in teaching children chess with both Chess in Schools and the European Chess Union.
Chess is an inclusive pastime that promotes key skills such as problem solving, logical thinking, pattern recognition and concentration. Playing chess boosts self-esteem and gives children resilience, which helps them grow into well rounded adults. It does this by teaching children how to lose and how to win gracefully, to think ahead and to foresee the consequences of their actions. Chess is especially beneficial for children with Special Educational Needs – please follow this link to the Chess in Schools website for more information about this:
https://www.chessinschools.co.uk/special-educational-needs
Our partnership with Chess in Schools means that members of our Chess Club are given free log ins so that they can access ChessKid, a worldwide online chess learning and playing zone designed for primary school children. Children can watch instructional videos, try chess puzzles, play bots and challenge their friends, while tracking their improvement as they move up through the ChessKid levels. For a one minute introduction to ChessKid please view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxRUm--xlkw
In recent months we have been promoting chess in school in the following ways:
· Chess 101 lunchtime sessions for beginners using the Chess at Home programme. We use mini-games in sequence as the building blocks of chess, learning a little more each time.
· Chess Playground lunchtime sessions for more experienced players, either indoors or outside depending on the weather.
· Chess for Social Skills, a course in ten parts, which uses a mixture of chess and group discussion to teach children about the importance of resilience, planning, practice, respect and other positive qualities. This has proved very popular in our afternoon enrichment slot.
· Three annual chess tournaments for different ability levels (Mini-games, Early Chess - without checkmate - and Modern Chess) with about half the school involved in total. There are prizes for all participants and trophies for the winners.
· A chess set is available in every classroom in the school, for when children have a few spare minutes to play.
· On Progress Day recently we set up a board with chess puzzles and this created a lot of interest and sign-ups for Chess Club.
If you have any questions about the Springfield House chess programme, please call me at the school and I will be happy to help. I look forward to hearing from you and to teaching your child the wonderful game of chess during their time at Springfield House.
Stuart Broadaway
Personal Development Lead