New Opportunities fund - Update September 2003

During the final year of the Aberdeen N.O.F. Chess Project, a fully funded academic study of three P4 classes is taking place.   David Leslie and Elaine Rutherford are giving chess tuition to one class, an hour long session once per week; charismatic school teacher Bryan Miller is giving a second class a different form of 'motivation', but no chess; a third class, taught by a gifted young teacher, is simply following the normal school curriculum.

The research team, led by Educational Psychologist Dr. Iain Davidson, will use multi-method indicators to compare these three P4 classes, to determine whether chess tuition has any influence on social and/or academic skills.   Meetings and preparations have been ongoing for some three months, enabling the study to get started in early September 2003, through to early June 2004 - almost an entire school year.   University statisticians will evaluate results from the study in the summer of 2004.

Schools staff, appreciating the impact of the chess project during the first two years, is being tremendously supportive of the study, which is taking place in two of the city's most under-privileged areas.

During the early stages of the P4 chess lessons, many positive aspects have emerged, not least the enthusiasm and application of the pupils, similar to P4’s of the previous two very successful years.

Aberdeen City Council again deserves recognition for awarding a substantial grant to enable this study to commence.
 

Report by David Leslie, N.O.F. Chess Development Worker