The Mentor and the Maharajah

We had a wonderful afternoon of chess at Westgarth Primary School today.

Caitlin Anderson very kindly gave up her afternoon of Y6 activities to come along to help out at my two Y4 chess curriculum sessions.

Caitlin, a reigning Teesside junior champion and captain of December’s CSC Teesside London expedition, arrived in the classroom to a warm round of applause and immediately entered into a special challenge match against the first class of children.

Maharajah Chess features an entire white army against one black queen. However, the black queen has a special power - it can move like a knight in addition to its normal moves. White has to capture the Maharajah Queen; Black has to capture the white king or place it in checkmate.

Caitlin was in charge of the Maharajah Queen and the class of Y4s commanded the white pieces as a team.

It was a close game but Caitlin emerged victorious.

Caitlin then went around the class to help the children with their CSC chess workbooks...

 ...before we put away the books and asked the players to split into twos for a game of chess. Caitlin immediately found herself surrounded by challengers!

Then it was all-change as went into the second Y4 classroom. Caitlin once again played against the whole class...

 ...and once again, she won.

The battles for and against the Maharajah Queen continued until the end of the session - this time on a one-to-one basis.

Well done, Caitlin! We are hoping to repeat the experience later in the term.