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!