chess Brentwood School had to decide about its chess programme along with everything else at the start of the first Lockdown back in March 2020. Rather than to scale back the chess programme, it was an opportunity to develop it further, and the School chose to embrace the new opportunities presented by an online world rather than stop and wait for the old world to return. This proved a smart decision as chess thrived online. Suddenly there was a whole world of people at home looking for stimulation, mental challenge, social contact or just something to do. I set up an online club for Brentwood School’s students at www.lichess.org. Lichess quickly became the platform of choice for schools because of safety (no chat facility with student accounts), a simple layout, quality learning material and a straightforward way to set up a wide variety of competitions. Millions of games are now played on the site every day. In School through 2020/2021, we played our chess on Lichess on iPads, all facing the front of the class with chess 54
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA4ODM=