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Mike Scott · King Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 676 Location: Edinburgh

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6022182

It contains a number of errors - the board four on the JGHS Scotsman team was SAM GREGORY, and 7 out of 18 has become 'almost 50%'.

Geoff Chandler · Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 10:37 am Post subject:

Looks OK to me.

Graeme Forbes · Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:59 am Post subject:

whilst I can see Mike's point, I can also appreciate that to those not knowing the errors it looks fine -it did to me. Errors with names is not good but 7 from 18 is nearly 50% welll nearer than 6 from 18 Confused

....it just maybe made better prose to the author.

in the round though -errors aside- it read quite well. its not the best i've ever read, but its good for that journal.

Alan Tate · King Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 377 Location: Edinburgh

This bit made me laugh: "Shivan, however, was only introduced to the game at the age of 11 when he joined the chess club because the art club was full."

All in all good publicity though Smile

Mike Scott · King Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 676 Location: Edinburgh

Just as certain people (Hi Andy Mc.!) get upset at bad spelling, I tend to get annoyed by poor use of numbers to justify an arguement. Be that exaggerating for effect or quoting numbers to x decimal places even when there is little significance even in the first place BEFORE the decimal point.

AMcHarg · Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 4:38 pm Post subject:

Good publicity, despite one or two mistakes. Cool

Phil Thomas · King Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 758

Trevor Davies · Queen Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 131

An interesting point is that it is implied that a player can reach international junior standard despite starting to play at a relatively late age, i.e eleven. (I know that we have a handful of exceptionally talented younger juniors). And the implication of this is that, assuming a goal of producing top-class players (rather than the goal of encouraging chess playing among primary school children), a great deal of effort may be yielding relatively little. Not an original thought (Richard James, Richmond CC has written along these lines - and argues that the association of chess with primary schools may even be a factor in the abandonment of chess by 12+ children. ) Perhaps he goes too far, but I think he is substantially on the right track. With limited resources, this suggests a shift in focus towards older children.

Mike Scott · King Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 676 Location: Edinburgh

Trevor,
I am afraid the story about Shivan is only partly true - he did wonder in from the art club because his sister was in the chess club but his first season was as a J10 and he already knew how to play. Indeed, what was striking was just how well he played.

Given how hard he works at his chess I am not sure he would be a good example to use to say that more could be achieved if the focus was on older children. I do think there is an arguement to be made that unless there is a structure in place to take the bulk of primary players through secondary then, other than the elite, most will continue to be lost and therefore the resources spent on them wasted.

Alex McFarlane · King Joined: 13 Mar 2007 Posts: 413

Certain things that pupils did in primary are immediately dropped in secondary because they are perceived as being childish.

Football obviously is not seen this way. We must make sure that chess is seen as a progression through life. Concentrating only on primary chess can, unfortunately, give children the (unconscious) impession that it is something they should grow out of. The lack of Secondary clubs can reinforce this image.

But what can be done is another matter!

Jacqui Thomas · King Joined: 01 May 2007 Posts: 340

Alex, you say what can be done & to be honest I think all we can do is be persistent in trying to get more secondary schools involved in chess.

I did mention at the AGM that during my time as SDD I spoke to many active coaches (ok not all but many) offering a carrot to help them get into secondary schools.

The carrot being that from the SDD budget Chess Scotland would pay 50% of a coaches fees to start up a secondary school chess club or class if the school paid the other 50%. This was just for one term 6-8weeks for the school to trial it. My budget was not used.

I have not received any feedback so I dont know if the coaches went round & were turned down but I am guessing that schools were not approached. I work part-time, I was already giving up a lot of my time & there is no way I was going school knocking to get into these schools across the country. I think it was a fair offer to the schools & for the coaches whom would benefit greatly from this experiment. Therefore I think I was right in expecting them to get the placements.

When I handed over to David I mentioned this project as he still has the budget to fund this & any other ideas he & others may have. But it has to be spent in secondary not primary.