Approach
What a lesson is made of
The chess is the easy part. Holding a room of twenty six year olds while they learn it is the part that decides whether the programme works.
Inside a session
The same block of time, laid out three ways. The bar shows the real minute shares, so you can see how much of an Infants session is not sitting down.
First Moves, 45 minutes
- 5 minStoryEveryone on the carpet. A short story that ends with today's piece.
- 10 minMoveOn their feetUp and moving. Children walk the piece's move on a floor board, one at a time.
- 8 minDiscoverBack at tables. One guided question with one findable answer.
- 15 minMini-gameTwo to four pieces, games that finish inside five minutes so everyone wins something.
- 7 minCelebrateEach child shows one thing they worked out. Nobody leaves without having said something.
Six rules the sessions are written to
- 01
One idea a week, not five
A session that covers five ideas teaches none of them. Every week has a single thing a child could name on the way out the door.
- 02
Show it before you name it
The name of a tactic is useless until a child has seen it happen. The demonstration comes first and the word comes second.
- 03
Younger children move
Infants do not sit for forty-five minutes and should not be asked to. Part of every early session happens standing up.
- 04
Games have to finish
A game that runs out of time teaches a child that chess does not end. Early games use a few pieces so they finish inside five minutes.
- 05
Losing is planned for
Every child in the room will lose. The session is built so that happens early, often, and without it being a moment.
- 06
Everyone says something
A child who never explains a move can hide for a whole term. Being asked why is part of the routine, not a spot check.
Additional needs
The game itself can be played without reading or writing
That removes two common barriers from the task itself, which is part of why chess turns up so often in schools as an activity that includes children other activities leave out. There is no running in it, no team to be picked for, and no clock unless somebody chooses to start one. The teaching around the game still uses talk, and a child who finds talking hard is not left out of it.
What actually happens
- The task changes, not the child. The same position is given as a harder question to one table and a scaffolded one to another, and nobody is told which they got.
- A child who finds sitting hard is given the job of moving the pieces on the demonstration board. It is a real job, not a consolation.
- Sessions for the youngest are built on movement first and the table second, because movement, short tasks and concrete materials suit the way many pupils of this age take on something new.
- An SNA who normally works with a child stays with that child. The session fits around your arrangements, not the other way round.
What is not claimed
- This is not special education teaching, and no qualification in it is held. It is ordinary differentiated primary teaching, applied to chess.
- One-to-one support during the session is not provided. If a child needs it, it has to come from the school.
- No claim is made that chess helps any particular condition. The claim is narrower and easier to check: the game itself asks for very little that gets in the way.
The one thing that helps. Say it in the enquiry. Not names, and nothing from a file: “two children have additional needs and one uses an SNA” is enough to change how the first three sessions are planned. Nothing about a child is stored or written down.
The child who already plays, and the child who is lost
Both are in every group. Splitting them into two rooms is not an option in an after-school club, so the task changes instead of the lesson. The same position is given with a harder question to one table and a scaffolded one to another. Nobody is told which they got.
This is ordinary differentiated teaching, which is the point. It is standard practice in a primary classroom and much less standard in a chess club.
What the research says about this