What an amazing Easter term for Chess! Both the daytime and afterschool clubs have been phenomenally well attended and enthusiasm across the school for the game has rocketed. Our plans to attend the National Schools Girls Chess Championships, our first external Chess event, were unfortunately thwarted in January by Covid. However, we have successful held our Preparatory School’s Holmes Chess Cup, and the inaugural Chandler Junior Chess Cup with unprecedented success.
54 Senior Prep School pupils battled it out for the prestigious Holmes Chess Cup, one of the largest winnable cups in the school! Competition was fierce and several pupils made it known how much they wanted to win! Semi-finals and Finals were once again held as spectator events in the Hargreaves Hall and Mr Hitchman was again astonished by the number of pupils who wanted to support and spectate the matches. In fact, the finals had no less than 47 pupils watching eagerly from the edge of their seats.
52 Matches later we had our final results. Unexpectedly, the Third place playoff ended as a stalemate, giving us a joint 3rd, whilst the championship final ended with a successful defence by last year’s champion!
For the first time the Holmes Championship was run as a House event, with pupils earning one point for their House for signing up, and an additional point for each match they won.
Congratulations to Churchills for becoming the 2022 Chess Champion House.
Also for the first time, a Junior Championship ran alongside the Senior Prep competition. With eight keen and already established juniors taking part. Despite its small size, matches were fiercely contested from the very first round with pupils eager to win the maiden event. The finals were again observed by Years 3, 4 and 5, and has sparked a surge in interest amongst the younger year groups: very exciting, considering we already have some very talented young players.
A massive well done to all those who took part.
