Chess is a low cost, high impact educational intervention. It knows no boundaries of age, gender, faith, ethnicity or disability, and can be played anywhere at any time. The game fosters intellectual and emotional skills crucial to a child’s wider development. Chess in Schools & Communities (CSC) is a nationwide charity founded in 2009 which delivers the educational and social benefits of learning chess to disadvantaged communities across the country. We work in a variety of community settings: libraries, hospitals, youth centres, homes for older people and prisons. Through our Schools’ Programme we currently teach chess in over 300 schools every week and support a further 2,400 schools with tuition, equipment, access to our curriculum and training. In schools, CSC’s unique approach is to run chess lessons during the school day as well as traditional chess clubs after school. Our lessons follow a bespoke 30-week curriculum designed to support other areas of the primary school learning, most notably mathematics. The course is suitable for children with no prior knowledge of board games and takes them from complete beginners to proficient players over the course of an academic year. Lessons are delivered by trained CSC tutors supported by school staff. The lessons are for whole classes of 30 children and typically take place in KS2 in primary school. Teaching during the school day ensures our programme is completely inclusive: no child is excluded from chess activities and children with special educational needs flourish. Girls, often under-represented in typical chess clubs, thrive in our lessons and tend to perform extremely well in our tournaments. In addition to these core activities, CSC also organises the London Chess Classic, a world-class chess tournament with a schools’ festival attended by up to 2,500 of our pupils, and ChessFest, a celebration of the game of chess which culminates in the charity taking over Trafalgar Square for the day to offer free, familyfriendly chess activities to members of the public. On 7th July 2024, a record 23,300 people attended the fourth edition of ChessFest ( www.chess-fest.com ). Our lessons plans contain large amounts of mathematical content particularly relevant to Key Stage 2 in primary schools: Numeracy – children are encouraged to constant keep track of the numerical value of their collection of chess pieces relative to their opponent. Coordinates - it is impossible to describe chess moves without using the coordinates assigned to the squares on the board. Geometry - when teaching in lower KS2, we often find our teaching of the chessboard introduces children to basic geometric vocabulary: horizontal, vertical, rows, columns, diagonals. In addition, when teaching the tricky knight move, many of our tutors use an L-shaped piece of paper to lay on the chess board and then talk about rotations and reflections of that shape to generate all the possible moves. Algorithms - there are various technical tasks in chess, especially when it comes to forcing checkmate. Our curriculum explicitly describes these as algorithms. For example, when delivering checkmate with a king and queen against a bare king, our pupils learn the Closing the Box method. Basic proofs - when learning how the pieces move around a chessboard, our curriculum sets children various problems that require simple mathematical proofs. For example, can the children find a way to move a knight from the bottom left corner of the chessboard to the top right in six moves? In addition to this mathematical knowledge, learning chess also develops various skills that are critical to STEM subjects in general: problem solving logical thought decision making visualisation concentration skills If you are interested in having chess taught in your school please get in touch! www.chessinschools.co.uk – dan@chessinschools.co.uk BIOGRAPHY Dan has worked for CSC since 2011. He started as a tutor in London and became London Coordinator before moving to Yorkshire. While he still loves teaching chess in schools, he coordinates CSC’s work in Yorkshire and other counties and deals with Tutor Recruitment outside London and Training, is National Library Coordinator and Deputy Safeguarding Lead. He is married and has two children. As well as working with chess he also enjoys playing

A country should judge the effectiveness of its public services through the experiences of those who fare least well. In Scotland, where many acknowledge the education system to be progressive, children from the Scottish Gypsy/Traveller community have been educationally disadvantaged for generations. Frequently, the children receive no schooling or they opt out at an early age. Scottish Gypsy/Travellers are from a tradition of nomadic communities across the UK, which also includes Romani Gypsies, Welsh Travellers and Irish Travellers. A key concern for communities is sustaining their culture. Most believe that schools fail in preparing their children for Gypsy/Traveller lives. Boys often leave at age 11 to take up opportunities offered through family businesses. Girls leave to be trained in domestic skills by mothers. Recent research findings (STEP, 2023) showed that the involvement of women was key to developing culturally relevant school experiences. However, the modest knowledge that women had of the modern education system was largely based on their own past experiences, which included an inflexible curriculum and frequently involved racism and discrimination from fellow pupils and staff. The women in the study were unaware of the changes to the system over the past 10 years. For example, while pre-school nursery is encouraged and places are free in Scotland, few mothers took up the offer—to do so would be a failure in their maternal duties. The research recommended that educators collaborate with communities to increase women’s knowledge of the system, to empower them to make decisions about their own, and their families’ education in line with SDG5. Communities’ members and educators collaborated with STEP to create STEP Starter Sacks, a culturally relevant play-based programme targetting pre-school-aged children and their mothers. A series of Sacks contained materials that encouraged women to participate in learning activities at home to prepare children for school. More strategically, the sacks also encouraged connections between mothers and nursery / school educators. Through these relationships, we hoped, mothers would gain trust and discover the value of education for all their children not to mention themselves. Moreover, staff at participating centres received training about Gypsy/Traveller culture and using appropriate ways to encourage parental participation. Each sack was colour coded for its contents: , literacy (red), science (yellow) and health and wellbeing (green), each designed to address some known barriers, including: Social rules and routines, helping children’s familiarity and confidence before starting school Mitigating barriers presented through low adult literacy, activity cards with QR codes directed mothers to video content on the STEP website To encourage a sense of ownership and belonging, Gypsy/Traveller culture was explicitly represented in the curriculum materials. To encourage sustained engagement, new Sacks were introduced at four-monthly intervals. The programme has been running for three years. Over 400 women continue to be involved. Their knowledge and understanding of the current education system has increased and we have evidence of changes in decision-making, expectations and aspirations around their children’s education, particularly for girls. “Obviously, education is important for anybody but, like years ago, what it was like for Travellers—you'd get married, you'd cook and you'd clean. You'd have kids. That was the women's life. But I don't want that for my girls. I want them to get an education and enjoy their life a little bit. They don't need a man to provide for them. They can do it themself. Obviously, eventually get married, yes. I just don't want that to be their life plan.” Female, 17-40 The programme has had significant impact on the uptake of nursery places as well as school attendance in older children. For the women, they have reported increased confidence in supporting their children’s learning at home. Most importantly, some described an increased understanding of their own agency. They have collaborated with staff, reaching shared understandings of their cultural needs and expectations. We have also extended the programme, opening local opportunities for women to develop their own literacy. These women now have enhanced capacity (resources, skills, social capital and connections), which we hope will lead to future benefits. BIOGRAPHY Maureen began her career as an artist and a teacher in Scotland. She has worked in schools and galleries throughout the UK using the visual arts to inspire new forms of participation and inclusion in education. She has undertaken research and evaluation for national bodies including The Arts Council of England, NESTA, Scottish Book Trust and The Scottish Government. She is currently Director of STEP, a Knowledge Exchange Centre at the University of Edinburgh, which supports sustainable education for traditionally nomadic communities. Maureen’s doctoral research was in digital participative research methods.