Goldfish grows to the size of the Tank:

How analogous is chess in schools?

Practical and Theoretical Issues of Chess Education in Schools 30 Sept – 2 Oct - 2016, Tsagkadzor, Armenia

ONE Voice for Chess: Durham City Chess Club, Durham County Chess Association, Durham University, Durham Area Action Partnership, Durham Council Enhance Institute of Chess Excellence, Durham, UK

Prepared By Malola Prasath, Enhance Institute of Chess excellence

Introduction

• Let’s derive the inspiration from the Goldfish. – However artificial, Gold fish belong to a fish tank!

– Quality water enables Gold fish grows to the size of the tank

– They are most desired to be released into bigger ponds

– Goldfish becomes an unmatched predator, when released to small ponds.

– Ultimately, Its only the Fishes that collectively remind us of the “School”!

• Why do we find Goldfish as analogy for chess in the school? – Is Chess-for-All stimulate an inclusive thinking in a school scenario?

– Can chess scale to the size of Classroom? Then to the size of the School?

– Is Benefit of playing chess, the real opportunity for its promotion in schools?

– Are we making chess as a predator to School level processes?

Facts that Mirror our Journey! • Durham Project: A surprising journey!

– March 2014, The Junior Coordinator, cancels Durham Junior County Championship,

• Only 8 children in a region of 850 schools (15,900 Primary school children)

• Root-cause : SPAM / knock down priority. Schools receive 300 emails a day and 40 mails. So No access to schools!

– August 2014, A programme to support volunteers for World Youth Chess Games for Disabled, Durham April 2015 and an evidence to bid European City of Sports Award.

– 6 month feasibility study worked out on programme design

• Consolidating historic dialogues with the schools and No school children involved in the process

– March,2015 Durham Area action partnership (DAAP) was approaches with £11,000 support (£18,900).

– DAAP, differed the project and ordered a proof of Concept. Reason: “Lack of Local Evidence!”

– 1 Councillor supports £500/- to offer in 2 schools in their ward

– However, we negotiated for 4 councillors to implement to raise a £2000/ - capital

• Brining 4 different implementation model negotiated with the schools and communities

• 3 Councillors signed the pilot, 1 councillor refused to support who offered 6 schools to be part of it, backed off

– Jan 2016 – we received a cheque -£1500/- for procurement of licenses.

– Jan 20, 2016 - The programme was presented to schools to find target age group

– Jan 25, 2016 - Victor Chess house programme was configured for the first School

• 6 children sign into the programme

• 28 children turn into the first chess session

– Feb 1, 2016 – We registered the 4 schools and 200 children

– March, 2016 – Victor Chess house reports 1800 collective hours of usage

– May 2016 – Request from a New school – St. Margaret’s Primary School

• 28 children signed in within 48 hours of notice

• 35 Children turn up for the first session

– July 2016 Victor Reports 2300 hours, around 50 lunch break sessions

– August 2016 – Council Invites to apply full grant to roll out to the entire Durham City Schools

A Scenario of Chess-in-school! (BLAME) • Building the clarity and visibility: The Big Idea on Moving Beyond Chess clubs

– What are we investing? • We propose building sustainable infrastructure for chess in Durham

• Local Authority Engagement: Accountability & Credit – What is in it for the local authority to invest?

• Accountability and Credit system

• Addressing the scale and quality of the Programme – Who plays chess for immediate returns to club?

• Primary or Secondary Children? • How do we engage them all within education settings?

• Motivating result driven (incremental) approach – What do we offer to schools? How can Council track the progress?

• Chess Equipment – Charities can donate it, but how do we track it is being used? • Chess Software – How do we select over wide range of expectation (teaching to learning) • Managing Social Projects: Volunteers going to schools • School children coming to the club – Club (Only Wednesdays) has max. capacity for 12 children

• Economics in Question: – What is New(and innovative) and What is the value for Money?

• Number of children benefiting the programme • Number of Voluntary hours generated • Number of newer people introduced through this scheme?

Understanding the approach to schools

• How does Chess grow in a classrooms (within Schools)? – Driven by Top down approach supported by local authority

– Building Shared Accountability and implementation

– Evidence of need driven and Technology led supported platform

– Driving the experience into Self-organised Learning Environment

• What improves the participation in schools? – Flexible implementation for the schools

– Modular Approach by introducing progressive chess experience

– Inclusive approaches to gather community of Users

A Progressive Chess Experience

A. Self-regulated Learning with Online Programme

B.Hands on Programme with DGT

C. Integrating children with per Digital Chess Experience

Introduce chess Delancey UK Chess Challenge and System of Chess tournaments

Step1: Online programme to demonstrate the evidence of learning Chess from Scratch

Step 2: Intervention with Chess Boards. Moving from

Online to hands on and Social chess programme

Step 2a: Experience Digital boards, Connect the schools

on Cloud

Step 3: Integrate schools with Inter-school tournaments

and align them to National events

http://shop.chess.co.uk/DGT-Sensory-Chess-Board-USB-Walnut-with-Timeless-p/cb01839.htm

Resources and References

https://www.newinchess.com/DGT_Chess_Box_Red-p-5201.html http://www.europechesspromotion.org/home

-english.htm

http://psm.demo.fide.com/main/authmain

Capacity building: The Flexible Engagement • Pre-consultation

– Inappropriateness to send children to clubs – Extremely pressed for curriculum time

• Initial Consultation with schools • School 1: Senior School

– Access to Library Suite 20 Computer, – Capacity Offered is 200 student (2 Lunch breaks x 20 students x5 days a week) – We agreed to allow a recruitment of 50 children for the pilot – Student Volunteers, who are aspiring teachers coordinate the programme

• School 2: Primary School 1 (Secondary School in the same campus) – Agreement to introduce chess during Breakfast club/ Lunch club/After school – Volunteer monitored event

• School 3: Primary School 2 (with no Secondary School) – Agreement to introduce chess in Lunch club only – Inviting secondary school student to run the club – Facilitated for Disclosure and Barred Services clearance, longer term engagement

• School 4: Self-paced learning – Agreement to introduce chess for young children Year 1 and Year2 who can potentially join next year

• Cluster of School (All schools in a ward): – Agreement with Councillor to allow schools to give their requirement – Extend community centre for children to play and engaged

• Durham University: College Students agreed to teach children at Schools – International students keen to volunteer with schools

Results: Children engagement List Levels finished with # of

children Efforts (Jan 2016 to Aug2016) Collective

hours

Naturally Inclined Children

12 10 hours additionally, in just victor chess house. (40 hours in total)

120

2 Children who completed Level 12

35 10 hours lessons + 20 hours gaming 1050

3 Children who completed Level 11

25 10 hours lessons + less than 20 hours gaming (avg. 25 hours)

625

4 Children who completed Level 10

14 10 hours lessons (no gaming time spent) 140

5 Children who completed Level 3 and Above

82 Occasional Visitors to chess 680

6 Children who completed Level 2

21 Children who tried on the first day and then quit after a test . (1 hour)

21

7 Children who completed Level 1

31 Children who tried on the first day, and quit 31

8 Children who did not use 30 Children who were assigned but never tried 0

Total 240 Time reported with online (before introducing a physical chessboard)

2617

Outcome of British EEF Trials • What was EEF trial on Chess in Primary Schools?

– £700,000 tax-payers money into invested into chess. – Randomised Control Trial (RCT) for Chess in a curriculum time – Randomised Control trial in Testing the benefit of chess for deprived children – 4000 children participate in the study, 100 schools. – A detailed evaluation on the process is developed.

• Key outcomes – No significant improvement in Maths/Science/English? – No evidence on children from deprived background benefited (positively impacted)

with chess – Tutors lacked classroom management, teaching skills: children were not suitably

engaged – Successful implementation entails class teacher actively contributing to the

intervention. – 50% liked, 8% disliked and Teachers were positive!

• Lessons learned: – Chess experience has been mutually exclusive to Key-Stage 2, curriculum experience – Chess-in-schools has produced “a null-observation”, than a negative observation – British Media has misquoted the research as uninspiring!

Discussion: Transforming Experience with Chess

• Key Insights from Durham Experience: – Top-down approach works

• Head-teacher driven Vs. Teacher driven

– Chess learning is self-regulated and self-organised • Children has work 10 times the contact hours • Discovered and engaged the software features • Organised a collective knowledge • Only assistance – remembering the website/ Login passwords

– Indicates that were not using memory – Experience was visual Search driven

• Hard to believe, when using online programme – Children were self-organised ( Teachers stood by the side) – Although Software allows playing online (without chat), children don’t accept to play strangers – Access to Italian/German/Spanish/Indian children were available, 0 game reported

• Even harder to believe, Once intervened through chessboard – Children picked hands on experience on the board, They never continued with the Software.

(thus transforming their experience) – Girls pick chess etiquette correctly (Apologies to Nigel Short)

• Write scoresheets and maintain their scoresheets well, (Better Executive function) • They fear playing with chess clocks,

• Trade-off: As soon as they start playing in Regular board: – We don’t have a clear tracking on the time spent with chess [core draw back with chess] – We introduced DGT board and playing to further connect classrooms.

Conclusion

• We have established a highly reproducible study to build the evidence of children exploring a chess experience

• Durham Implementation has 4 drivers – (a) Conserving Grassroots intelligence

• Durham City Chess Club’s expertise. • Directing our Club expertise to restore the dying art!

– (b) Harnessing Priorities of Local Authorities • Demonstrating Well being of Children and Young People • Value for Money (240 children, 2500+ hours, £1500/-). • Reaching children who are otherwise difficult to access

– (c) Securing Sustainable Infrastructure • Digital Chess Equipment as Shared Capital

– (d) Actual Value through Evidence based programme • We promoted chess players.

• We have build a sustainable design and spiced it with a Novel implementation of a Self-organised learning Environment.

Future work • Scale the classroom:

– Replicate the programme to get more classrooms

– Connect classrooms with Digital technologies

– CSC, London has proposed to scale this national wide recognising its innovation

• Enrich chess experience through Interschool tournaments: – Intend to run invitation tournament

– Quarterly tournaments

• National wide participation – Subscribe to UK Chess Challenge in all the Durham

– Introduce a Mega-Final event in County Durham

– ECF Senior School Event to sustain the interest

Key References • Reference Works:

– Understanding temperament of children • Stella Chess MD, (1990) Temperament: Theory and Practice

– Stable Roommate design: • Malola Prasath et. al (2007) Stable Roommate Framework for deploying Chess Measurably in

Schools, Conference Proceedings, CISCCON 2007, University of Aberdeen, UK

– Self organised Learning Environemnt (SOLE) • https://altc.alt.ac.uk/blog/2012/02/the-self-organised-learning-environment-sole-school-

support-pack/#gref

– British Education Endowment Fund: • https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/our-work/projects/chess-in-primary-schools

• Technology Solutions • Digital Gaming Technologies:

– http://www.digitalgametechnology.com/index.php/products – http://www.digitalgametechnology.com/index.php/news/529-livechess-2

• DAAP – Children and Young People’s Programme – http://www.durham.gov.uk/durhamaap

• Durham County Chess association – www.dcca.org.uk

Acknowledgment • This work would not be possible without the support of 3 Councillor

– Cllr Nigel Martin

– Cllr David Stoker

– Cllr Amanda Hopgood

and Special Thanks to Cllr Bill Moir, who ensured a small fund is made available.

• Our Head teachers

– Mrs. Bethan Smith, Framwell Gate Primary School

– Mr. Steve Mc Ardle, Durham Johnston School

– Mrs. Pamela Monaghan, Nevil’s Cross Primary School

– Mr. High-Shincliffe Primary School (NCCU School’s Award 2013 recipient)

– Mrs Helen McDaid, St. Margaret’s Primary School

• Dr. Steven Higgins, School of Education, Durham University who set the vision for this study

• Dr. Joe Elliot, Principal, Collingwood College, Durham University to Supported Blind Simultaneous, to demonstrate the Proof of concept of digital technologies that integrates classrooms. Chris Ross and Dave Clayton for Supporting the Inclusive ideas

• John Murphy and Wendy Lavelle, Coordinator, Championing the project from Council’s end

• Alessandro Dominici, for his support with the Victor Chess house licenses.

– We received more than what we paid for

– Detailed understanding of CASTLE project, which scored 100/100 on ERASMUS+

• Hans Pees, CEO of DGT, Netherlands for fuelling our innovative approaches with DGT Products

• Members of Durham City chess Club- who stood by, to convert a lost battle for chess

• Enhance Institute of chess Excellence, for validating some Chess-in-schools design

Thank You!!

Your Questions!?