CHESS CLUB
The Chess Club has two purposes. The primary purpose is to provide a place for friendly games for players of all ages and abilities. The club meets each Break from 1.10 - 1.55pm. The secondary purpose is to provide opportunities for players to improve their standard and play competitive games either at school or for one of the school teams. For individual play last season, we entered the long established U.K. Chess Challenge which provides players with the opportunity to play in regional and national finals, as several of our pupils did in July and August. We also enter team competitions, including two teams in the English Chess Federation’s National Schools Chess Championship, and other quickplay competitions run by the Birmingham and District Schools Chess League. In 2007, we won the E.C.F. National Schools Chess Championship for the third year running and our ‘B’ team reached the national Quarter-Finals; this was a unique achievement .We finished second nationally both in 2008 and 2009, and reached the Quarter-Finals in 2010.
A number of our players have achieved county or national recognition. Four of our current players, Oliver Exton, Andrew Garside, Kishan Lakhani and Toby Thurgood have played for England junior teams.
The club has a good stock of sets and clocks (both digital and analogue), and also has two chess computers, a buzzer for lightning chess, and, for training purposes, a demonstration board. The school library provides copies of Chess, a leading magazine, as well as a good range of chess books.
The Chess Colours for 2010 have been awarded to:
Ashton Alfred, Jonathan Day, Oliver Exton, Kishan Lakhani, Eamonn Lim, Daniel Lin, Henry Pynegar and Toby Thurgood.
Dr John Swain (teacher in charge of chess)
