Hi everyone. Welcome to my December blog, a little late I know but I’ve been recovering from the Winter flu. This blog is all about the day before. The most wonderful day at the Chess in Schools and Communities Chess training day.

The CSC Training was held at the London Emirates stadium, home to Arsenal football club. It was also the location of the London Chess Classic and it felt amazing to be at this event!

Introducing Sean Marsh, our teacher trainer

Sean Marsh led the training. We connected last year on X (twitter). The truth is I attended this training years ago when Chess in Schools sent their own tutor to my primary school in North London.

The course is also offered to link teachers in primary schools because CSC believed in building a chess school and culture even after the CSC tutors have gone. So why did I attend again? Well I’m now officially a CSC tutor and when I saw Sean Marsh was hosting, I decided to book my place.

We both have social media chats promoting chess and I always comment on Sean’s puns and jokes. He lived up to his expectations as a chess comedian on training day!

Highlights from from the Emirates, Sean, Brigitta and the fab course partipants.

Sean was lead trainer and Brigitta Peszleg from Chess Plus and the ECU Education Commission was also host. If you follow me you’ll know that Brigitta is one of my chess queens. The last time we spent a day together she was my guide at the Chess Connect Us festival, Budapest.

More than just a game

Sean’s course was an introduction to teaching chess. Engaging, full of humour and practical. Sean teaches beyond the board. There are many reasons to play chess but the social and emotional benefits are huge. Chess works at a deeper level. We explored the many benefits in the group.

Mini games in the morning

We played a range of mini games, learning how they are used to teach piece movement, skills and concepts. The participants came from different backgrounds, some teaching in schools and libraries, some who played chess at a professional level, and some new to chess education. It was wonderful to meet new people.

Maharaja Chess and Pirate Chess

We also played Chess variants. The ‘teacher against the students’ game was Sean’s favourite, Maharaja Chess.

Another variant was Pirate Chess (aka ‘Capture me’ or ‘Loser’s Chess’). The aim of the game is to lose all of your pieces first, no check or checkmate in this game.

I discovered my niche in chess. I won six games against different players. I seem to be skillful in losing my pieces first! 😉 When I’ve played this with my students I ask them to say the phrase ‘take me’ after their move. It focuses the attention on the piece they’re offering to their opponent. And stops any children ‘pretending’ not to see the capture. 🤫 To honour the special training day I added pirate themed icons to LogiqBoard!

The Atmosphere

Our training classroom wasn’t your conventional classroom. It was an open floor. We could hear Judit Polgar on the big screen, commenting on the Fide World Championship in Singapore with Ding and the new world champion Gukesh. 🏆

Glance down through the balcony and you could see chess players in the tournament. In the days that followed hundreds of children would be visiting to play games and take part in simuls with grandmasters. This is one of the many perks of becoming a CSC school, you have access to the most amazing events.

Did we focus on Sean? Absolutely. We were lucky to be part of such day.

Special guests

In the second half we had several special guest appearances from the CSC team.

Malcolm Pein, the CEO and heart of CSC joined us for a mini session. Malcolm shared a puzzle where we had to figure out the moves for an opening. Thinking in reverse, visualising moves and exploring possibilities.

Malcolm deserves a blog to himself. We’ve met over the years whether it’s at the London Chess Festival in Trafalgar Square (his biggest community event) the London Chess Conference or at the Chess and Bridge book shop in Baker Street. Each time we meet I’m blown away with his vision. He’s at one event already planning the next. Constantly thinking of ways to reach the community (and government) and raise the profile of chess in the UK.

When we first spoke on zoom during Lockdown Malcolm’s message was clear. CSC is about inclusive chess. Ofcourse they nurture future talent for the England team but CSC is about giving all children and adults access to learning and playing chess. That’s all I’ll say for now. He is chess royalty. For more check out the CSC website:

https://www.chessinschools.co.uk/

LogiqBoard makes it on the top resources list!

The final part of the day was a session by Matt Piper on recommend resources. If I’m the primary maths specialist in CSC then Matt is the secondary specialist. You can definitely see his influence on the CSC curriculum and lesson plans. Problem solving skills and reasoning skills are explored throughout.

Matt shared the top resources for tutors. It was a pleasure to hear Matt include LogiqBoard amongst the top sites!

The CSC website, Kahoot quizzes, Chesskid.com, Lichess and Acorn Chess were included in the recommended teacher resources.

LogiqBoard demo by Matt Piper

As you can see I had a great day learning and networking. Here are my takeaways from the CSC training day.

♟️LogiqBoard once again is included in a top quality chess course. 🎉 🌎

♟️The Chess in Schools and Communities Charity is something quite amazing. Headteachers in the UK get in touch for a chat. You will never regret bringing chess into your school.

♟️UK teachers I highly recommend the CSC teacher training courses and becoming part of this team!

♟️Lesson ideas include mini-games, whole class v teacher games, ‘Guess the moves’ puzzles, Kahoot quizzes and more.

♟️Help raise the profile of scholastic chess. Teachers, use social media to share the wonderful work going on.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all!

☃️ As a free Christmas gift I’m sharing some puzzles you could use with students or make a friends and family festive quiz:

https://logiqboard.com/worksheets/3FQoYRVoW5

https://logiqboard.com/worksheets/ep09a2RnrU

Finally, thank you Sean. It wasn’t easy for a Tottenham Hotspur fan to spend a day at Arsenal but you were worth it!

Until next time…

Hari x