RCF Wins Presidential Grant for Support of Chess Education

The project is to determine best practices of teaching chess at schools. 

The Russian Chess Federation has become one of the winners of the Contest of the Presidential grants in nomination «Supporting projects in the field of science, education and enlightenment». 

Alexander Kostiev, initiator of the Universal Chess Education project: 

- The project is aimed at determining the best practices of teaching chess at schools, generalize and widely discuss an advanced experience to organize extracurricular work, and to create an electronic resource of teaching materials in initial classes of regular schools. 

The Project’s first stage (December 2017 – March 2018) will be a Contest among teachers of initial classes and pedagogues of additional education who teach chess at schools. The Contest will determine the best working out of a chess lesson and organization of an extracurricular chess activity. Participants will be supplied with tools to prepare teaching materials with chess diagrams. In parallel, a web portal Universal Chess Education is being worked out. 

The second stage (April – May, 2018) will include selection of the best lay-outs, pedagogical trial of presented materials, creation of electronic base of chess lessons, and distribution of invitations for the conference. 

On the third stage (June 3-6, 2018), the conference Universal Chess Education at the Russian Schools will be held (during the all-Russian team competition for schools Belaya Ladya, Sochi, Dagomys). The winners of the Contest (admission out of funds of the Project) and representatives of the Russian regions (teachers and pedagogues of an additional education), who are recommended by the local chess federations and departments of education, are invited to take part in the conference. In total - up to 200 participants from all regions of Russia. 

The fourth stage (June – August, 2018) will be a composition of a Collection of educational and training materials «In Aid of a Chess Teacher» based on the materials of the Contest, conference and other sources. Its electronic version will be available by September 1, 2018. 

In the recent years, the Russian Chess Federation together with the Charitable Foundation of Elena and Gennady Timchenko have developed Chess School tutorial (its author is Vladimir Barsky), reanimated the all-Russian team competition for schools Belaya Ladya, widely launched charitable actions aimed at rendering chess books and sets to various regional schools. And now a new perspective project emerged which would approach the dream of chess organizers to add chess lessons to elementary schools curriculum.