Brambles at Broadway

It seems like just yesterday when I was last at Broadway Junior School, teaching the Y4s some chess moves. Ah, it was!

Today I made a return journey to repeat an experiment from last year, when a number of children from Broadway came to Teesside for a day of shared chess activities.

This time, nine Brambles - having already enjoyed their normal morning chess sessions - travelled to Sunderland for a packed afternoon of chess with some Broadway Y4s and more experienced Y5s.

Off we go!

Some players slept on the way there. Believe it or not,
the right hand is playing chess moves as he sleeps.

'Are we there yet?'

Welcome to Broadway!

We started off with an ice-breaker of a wordsearch. The Brambles children bravely introduced themselves to the Broadway players and selected a partner with whom to work.

Following some excellent group work solving quest problems on the big demonstration board, the children paired up to solve some tricky checkmate puzzles.

Then we went through all of the answers on the big board.

We took a break for juice and biscuits before getting ready to play a big match.

We appointed two captains to select players for the teams, mixing Brambles and Broadway stars equally.

The children played very well. They were competitive but the atmosphere was very friendly.

Remarkably, the match ended in a draw - 7-7!

Some Brambles slept on the way home...

...but others were still too excited!

What a magical day! Thank you to everyone who helped to make it such a success and to Mrs Hastie (Broadway) and Mrs Farrell (Brambles) in particular.