There are many different ways you can run a school chess club. Generally, school clubs last from a minimum of 30 minutes to 1 hour. Sometimes schools insist on a 30-minute lesson for a multitude of reasons. This is not ideal, and is the bare minimum time for a chess club. 1 hour is preferable. Below is one example of a 1-hour lesson:
- Arrival and registration. When the children arrive, you should take the register so you (i) know who is in the club in case of any fire drills and (ii) also know who is not in the club. It may be that a child has left their classroom and gone AWOL for a number of reasons and not arrived at the class despite a school classroom teacher having dismissed him in the direction of the club, or they may have been accidentally picked up by a parent who forgot that it was the day for chess club.
For missing children, you need to ask the school office if that child was in school, so they can investigate for you if they need to. This is quite difficult when you bear in mind that you cannot leave the children alone in the classroom. With older children, you can send two children to the school office. The children will ask the school office to come to the classroom. For younger children, it is general but normal practice for teachers to bring them or hand them over. Some schools have a meeting point for clubs; you pick up your club children at that point. I would ask the club coordinator about any missing children at that point. - Demonstration board lesson. The children will not want to listen to you drone on with a demonstration board lesson for very long. They want to have fun with their friends and actually try and play the game for themselves. A demonstration board lesson in a school club should be very basic and last between 5-10 minutes after taking the register. Perhaps add a 5-minute refresher of the lesson at the end of the session, after the children have packed away and are you are waiting for the parents to pick them up.
- Free play time. Once the demonstration board lesson is finished, the children can go to their tables, find their opponents, set up and play. For the chess coach this is still a teaching session. It is good practice to go round the class while they are playing, giving basic advice and asking questions, such as: ”Remember the opening rules”, “Have you developed your pieces?”, etc. You can also show suggestions on their boards. I call these mini training sessions. You will find these interactions are quite short, as a lot of children will want or need some attention during this period, especially those who are learning the moves.
- Tournament time. Every week in a chess club it is good practice for the children to play a competitive game. After all, this is life skill that may be very important as children become adults. I generally use the last 20-25 minutes to play a tournament.
The children are paired using the standard swiss pairing method. Adjustments can be made to this, based on your judgement on abilities in the group. Even the players who only know how to move a pawn will compete. Their opponents will also be using just pawns as well. The pawn game is a good tool for getting children to think ahead: i.e. what happens next?
A possible scoring structure is: 1 point for a loss, 2 points for a draw, 3 points for a win (adjudicated), 4 points for a checkmate. You can, if you wish, add an extra point for those who castle. There can also be the extra quiet point. If the children are to do their best, they should be concentrating and not speaking to their friends at this point. Every child starts with a quiet point. If they speak, they lose the quiet point. The children are only allowed to say “check”, “checkmate” and “adjust”. Any other questions should be addressed by raising your hand so the teacher can talk to them directly. To reinforce the points structure it is good practice to have the points tally at every class. The children often arrive in the class keen to know their current points tally and also who they will play in the tournament, even before you have taken the register. - End of club. Schools tend to have different practices in this respect. In all circumstances you must ensure a child is dismissed correctly. This may be:
1) Getting parents to sign out of chess club.
2) Ensuring a handover to the after-school coordinator, who then dismisses the children.
3) Dismissing the child directly to the parent via line of sight.
If you work in multiple schools, you will almost certainly find different practices by schools on a daily basis.
