Schools make their moves with chess

BarcelonaOnce a week, seventy preschool and primary school children at the Betània-Patmos school in Barcelona's Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district participate in a midday chess session. This activity has been offered as an extracurricular activity by the school to students from the fourth grade onward since 2011. "Parents really like it because it helps clear their minds and concentrate. But the children are also drawn to it," says Uriel Jiménez, the school's extracurricular coordinator. He adds that this is because the instructors teach chess using a playful methodology. For this reason, he says, it's one of the extracurricular activities with a higher enrollment rate than dropout rate throughout the school year. The Betània-Patmos school is one of 150 educational centers in the metropolitan area where the Catalan Chess School (ECADE) teaches chess. In most schools, chess is offered as an extracurricular activity, although some centers also hold regular classes during school hours and others offer occasional workshops. ECADE was founded in 2022 through the merger of two existing chess schools: the Barcelona Chess School and the Miguel Illescas Chess School. It also functions as an academy, with around 80 children attending afternoon classes at its premises, and as a club, with 40 members. In addition, they organize chess, board game, and strategy camps during Christmas, Easter, and summer breaks. In total, they have 38 instructors on staff who teach chess to 4,000 students each year.

Jordi Sardà, director of ECADE, says that in recent years they have noticed increased interest from schools in offering chess to their students. According to him, this hasn't translated into a massive increase in students, but rather a steady rise. Most of the schools they work with are located in the hills above Barcelona – many are private or semi-private – and offer chess as an extracurricular activity. However, the schools where they conduct the activity throughout the school year during regular school hours are all public.

Chess against inequality

One such center is the Turó d'en Caritg school in the La Salut neighborhood of Badalona. This school has been identified by the Department of Education as having the highest level of complexity, a designation given by the administration based on the socioeconomic circumstances of a large portion of the student body, which are understood to potentially hinder their learning process. Students in the sixth grade of primary school and the first three years of secondary school (ESO) at this school participate in an hour of chess lessons with instructors from ECADE. They have been doing this for three years, although they had previously attempted something similar with the school's own teachers. Every Thursday morning, the different groups rotate through the classroom where they practice chess. They begin with 15 to 20 minutes of theory and strategy, followed by exercises and games.

According to Ferran Roca, a teacher at this school and head of the chess project, the results have been very positive. Roca explains that, due to their families' socioeconomic circumstances, these students would never otherwise participate in chess as an extracurricular activity. He says it's an interesting activity for developing logical thinking skills, but in the case of this student group, the important thing is that "it forces them to think, to innovate, to make decisions, to be independent." Roca states that his students are very used to performing mechanical tasks and reproducing what they see. With chess, however, "you have to invent what to do; you have to think and consider the consequences of your actions." That's why he considers the activity so valuable for the students at his school, who typically don't receive study support at home. He says the students' response has also been good. "Every year there are students who, though you wouldn't guess it, become enthusiastic," he affirms.

Increased concentration

The director of ECADE believes that playing chess gives children greater concentration and calculation skills, better mental organization, and a more methodical approach. And, he says, this ultimately translates into improved reading comprehension. Among all these benefits, Uriel Jiménez, from the Betània-Patmos school, highlights the improvement in attention span and concentration at a time when, he says, many children and adults are distracted and disorganized.

"It gives them a certain pause to do things. They learn not to rush, to meditate and evaluate each situation before making a decision." This is the view of Josep Lluís, father of an eight-year-old boy who has been attending chess classes for two years. Bru started playing occasionally at home with his father and brother until, at age six, he joined a club in Sants, his neighborhood. Later, this same club began offering classes at his school, and he started teaching them there as an extracurricular activity. In addition to this, and being a member of the federation, he attends the online classes and competitions offered by the Catalan Chess Federation on weekends. He also signs up for three or four annual stays organized by the federation itself at hostels in the Xanascat network. "We don't sign him up for more championships because he also does other activities, and we like this diversity, maintaining a balance between more intellectual hobbies, more physical ones, and more artistic ones," this father explains.

Young people are deserting

Before Bruno, his brother Pau played chess at school and was a member of a chess federation. But, according to his father, as he progressed through secondary school, he gradually abandoned it. First, he stopped attending competitions, although he continued his classes until the third year of ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education). From that age on, he also decided to stop taking classes and practice chess at home as just another board game.

This is not an isolated case, according to chess schools and educational centers that offer the activity as an extracurricular activity. In secondary school, academic demands are higher, and many students decide to reduce their extracurricular activities. And chess is one of the activities that often goes unused.