Chess in Schools
With chess providing the extraordinary educational benefits that it does (visit our Why Chess? page to read more), we at ECA want to provide an opportunity for schools to include chess in their curriculum or on their list of extra curricular activities that are available to their pupils. Chess can be incorporated in your school in these three ways:
Chess Club
For our chess clubs, a trained tutor will be present at the school to teach a maximum of 12 children. If the demand for chess is larger, we can provide additional tutors to increase the size of the club. Chess clubs can be run as either a lunch time or after school activity. If you are interested in this option, please contact us.
Subject
If you believe in the benefits of chess, we are also able to run classes during the school day. Chess classes incorporated into the curriculum have already been adopted in many countries including the Netherlands, Spain, Armenia and England. Chess classes run during school hours would consist of an ECA tutor and an assistant taking a class for a designated period of time – the duration of the lessons would be school dependent. If your school would like to incorporate chess into its curriculum, please contact us.
Virtual Tutor
A chess tutor can dial in to a classroom using video conferencing (Zoom/Teams etc) to run the club/subject virtually. With a teacher/parent assisting in the classroom, children receive a lecture and then one to one tuition with our tutor whilst the teacher supervises the rest of the class. This is an excellent and cheap way of getting a Chess Club started in your school. Furthermore, it can be done anywhere! We have done this in a number of schools during the pandemic and it works really well.
Current Work in Schools
Currently, the ECA teaches over 600 children across 17 different schools. Below are a list of schools we are already established in:
Bruntsfield Primary
Sciennes Primary
Liberton Primary
Pirniehall Primary
Forthview Primary
ESMS Junior School
St. George's School for Girls
Edinburgh Steiner School
Niddriemill Primary
Nigel Short Chess Society (Fettes College)
South Morningside Primary
Cargilfield Preparatory School
Tollcross Primary
Flora Stevenson's Primary
Edinburgh Academy Junior School
Craigroyston Primary
Blackhall Primary
Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, these clubs have been temporarily suspended. We hope to be back in schools, chessing up a storm, in the near future!
