British Schools Chess Championship

The British Schools Chess Championship is an annual competition for school chess teams that has been in existence continuously from 1958. The tournament is administered by the English Chess Federation and is open to all schools from the United Kingdom. The competition has been won by teams from all four countries of the UK.

At the height of popularity in the 1970s, in excess of 1000 teams took part, but since then a decline in the number of teams has taken place. In 2007-08, the accepted entry increased from 93 teams to 135 teams, which represented the highest number of entries for four years. Yateley Manor School,from Yateley in Hampshire, sponsors from 2008-2011, supported the event through a difficult period and deserve special mention.

The competition, now known as the National Schools Chess Championships, is being relaunched by the English Chess Federation in 2012,with sponsorship from St Catherine's School,Bramley, who are supporting a wholly new school team tournament for girls,with both U11 and U19 sections, Heathside Preparatory School, from Hampstead, London for a new U11 open section and Winchester College (new in 2012) for the U19 open section. The competition also has a new website for 2012 at http://www.nationalschoolschess.org.uk. For the first time entry for schools is free (until 31 August 2012) and can be completed online. Each of these schools recognizes the value of chess in education, where it takes a place as an enjoyable gymnasium for the mind.

Eligibility

Entry is open to any school in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. All players must be under-19 on 31 August of the year in which the competition begins. Teams are made up of six players, with an age handicap system in operation based on the average age of each team.

Teams initially compete in regional zones with the winner of each zone progressing to the National stage of the competition. The 2012/13 event may also have weekend zonal sections for those schools for whom this is most convenient. There have been four occasions where Primary Schools have won their Regional finals against secondary and sixth form teams. Two of these occasions were by St Teresa's RC Primary School, Colchester.^[1]

Sponsorship

In 1938 The Sunday Times (UK) made an offer to the then British Chess Federation to donate a trophy for a competition between teams from Public schools.^[2] Before further investigation of this offer could be completed the war intervened. Finally in 1957-58 competition got under way under the sponsorship of The Sunday Times (UK) newspaper. Their patronage continued until 1983, when their sister paper The Times took over. Since the withdrawal of sponsorship by The Times after the 2001 finals, the championship continued without a sponsor until 2008.

National finalists

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

Plate

1990s

2000s

2010s

Sources

• The Times
• The Sunday Times (UK)
• Southern Counties Chess Union Website
• ECF Schools Website

External links

• Official updates from Competition Controller
• English Chess Federation
• New National Schools Chess website for 2012/13

Last modified by Andrew Martin on June 19, 2012