Primary 'Chess Heads' excel

On Thursday, Week 8, Term 2, 26 students from Years 2-6 played in the annual South Coast Primary Chess Gala Day. The tournament was being hosted by NCS for the first time. Schools from our region joined us for the fifteen team competition.

NCS included six teams, as a way of 'blooding' many students into their first (friendly) competitive chess tournament. All our students got to play six or seven matches against students from other teams.

Bevan, from the NSW Junior Chess League, organised and ran the day. He provided our chess sets, boards and even some proper digital chess timers for most of the games.

Our 'NCS Team A' finished runners up, just one point behind an equally talented team from Illaroo Road Public School. Alex W had the honour of being one of only two players to win all their games played. All of our students got at least one positive result and all our teams scored wins on the day (which doesn't always happen).

Hat's off to Josh A and Bethany D who played in a 'barbarians' style team with two students from another school. A fantastic time was had by one and all! Everyone seemed keen to play in future tournaments or friendlies that will be organised.

The Wednesday lunchtime Primary Chess Club has had massive growth this year. Some weeks we have more students than we've got boards and sets! It's a nice problem to have! Thank you to Mrs. Tameka Giddings for her work in organising and running the chess group each week. Much appreciated.