School Chess Clubs

Many schools offer after school chess clubs for their students. Some schools even offer a before school option for their chess programs!

Schools seeking a chess program will often attempt to run a club using existing staff. However, staff may not be readily available at all times when chess club is supposed to meet. Staff may also not be very experienced or knowledgeable when it comes to chess itself.

How does it typically work?

Most school clubs begin with a staff member at a school, usually a PTSA member, reaching out to us to work with us on starting a chess club.

Most school clubs meet once per week on a certain day of the week, Wednesday for example, usually for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes. Some schools arrange for chess clubs to meet weekly for the entirety of the school year. However, a more common and more flexible option for the students is to break the school year up into sessions, or seasons. Often the best way of doing this is to have a Fall, Winter, and Spring session. Sessions can have anywhere from 6 to 10 classes that meet weekly, except for holidays and special school days. In practice, 3 sessions of 10 classes each throughout the school year is the best way to structure this.

Once the school agrees on the dates of when chess club should be held, we then book the space desired, usually the cafeteria or the library, but if neither are available, a classroom can work. Depending on the school district, this may be done either directly through the school, or through the district office.

Once the dates are scheduled, we open up registration via 6Crickets. Some schools opt to take care of the registration themselves, which is completely fine. Students are then able to register for the chess session. Parents will pay for the 10 classes up front, and therefore there is no cost to the school!

The best schools that we work with will help advertise the club through the PTSA. We will also take care of advertising, whether or not this is the case.

On the first day of chess club, we will go over the rules of the club, which are:

1. Respect the Speaker

Whether they are the Coach or a student who raises his or her hand

2. Respect Eachother

Do not do anything that may show disrespect to another student or coach. This is all inclusive. Simply do not treat others in a way that you would not want to be treated. This includes arguing with others or excluding them from games.

3. Respect Property

If something is not yours, make sure you are only using it with the owner’s permission. Do not use property in a way that it shouldn’t be handled, for example, do not throw chess pieces.

4. Have Fun!

It’s not just a fun phrase to say. If a student is, for whatever reason, not having fun in chess class, he or she is encouraged to talk to a coach. The coach can help him or her by asking “What would make chess club more fun?”, and then adjusting accordingly.

The first class will be mostly free play while the coaches assess each student into a group, Beginner and Advanced. One lesson will be given for the whole group, unless there are a few kids who are brand new to piece movements, in which case, they will have their own lesson. Each class thereafter will include (assuming 1 hour of class time):

~15 minutes of warm up games

~20 minutes of lesson time, each coach taking a separate group based on skill level

~20 minutes of tournament games, more if the class time exceeds 1 hour

~5 minutes of cleanup

The penultimate class will be our Build a Checkmate Challenge day. After warm up time (longer than usual), a lesson will be given on how the challenge works, then students will work in teams to solve as many challenges as they can before cleanup time.

The final class of the season will include our awards ceremony, in which parents can attend (if the school allows), with free play and many chess variants to choose from! Coaches will teach lessons based on what variant(s) students choose to play.

At each class, students are welcome to print off optional homework sheets (coming soon), and bring them to the next class to earn a small prize.

If this all sounds good and you want to proceed with holding a club at your school or organization, or if you are still having questions as to how a school club might work, or if you have some ideas to improve the club format for your particular school, please feel free to Contact Us!