06 September, 2006

The 'Big Day Out'



Castlemaine Secondary College made smart moves at the recent Regional Schools Chess Tournament held at Bendigo, winning 6 of a possible 14 medals and seeing 5 students make their way through to the Victorian Schools Chess Championship.

Of the 42 secondary students participating, 23 came from Castlemaine Secondary College.

The result is a marvellous endorsement for our chess program- Chess-Squared- funded by Schools Innovations and Excellence, that started earlier this year.

The program has seen teachers across 13 schools in the Mt Alexander cluster work in collaboration with tutors from the Castlemaine Chess Club and Castlemaine Community House.

CSC teacher Mark Johansson has been a key player in the initiative. Johansson has run lunchtime tournaments honing players skills to competition standard, and has incorporated chess into his junior maths curriculum.

Johansson has also visited primary school classrooms, teaching tactics and strategy.

“In class students are engrossed in the game. It’s surprising how it consolidates so many maths skills.” Johansson said.

Johansson commented on the steadily growing chess culture at CSC over the year. ‘Earlier this year, we’d run chess one lunchtime per week. Recently, it’s been running three times a week with healthy student numbers supporting the activity.’ Johansson said.

We wish everyone well in the State Finals early next term.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations. Well done!