In 2019, I was approached by Warwick Junior School’s then Director of Co-curricular Events and Activities, Keith Marshall, to take over the running of chess at school. It was an invitation which I accepted unhesitatingly and with much excitement, sensing a huge amount of potential in school and its pupils. Fast forward five years and a vibrant chess culture has developed, the number of boys playing the game at school has skyrocketed, fantastic chess progress has been made and some remarkable individual feats have been achieved. Moreover, all have benefited in so many other ways from this wonderful game. As a former England junior international and now a full-time chess coach, I greatly value not only the skills and qualities that chess helped me to develop, but also the friendships I formed and the enjoyment I gained from it. Chess can be such great fun for children that it is easy to forget that it remains a fiendishly difficult adult game, making the achievements of Warwick Junior School's chess players all the more impressive. In 2023, these were formally recognised with a British Chess Educational Trust (BCET) award from the English Chess Federation (ECF) to Warwick Junior School. This honour is a tribute to the enthusiasm, dedication and talent of the boys in chess club who go from strength to strength each year. It gives me great pleasure to shine a spotlight on what is taking place over the board at school and why we now have a well-deserved national reputation as a centre of chess excellence

Chess in school

Each week, approximately 80 boys in Years 3 to 6 attend lunchtime chess clubs running from Monday to Friday. Each year group has its own club and the Master chess club on Friday enables boys from all year groups to receive additional high-level chess coaching. During club sessions, the boys have the opportunity to not only play friendly games against each other but also play games under tournament conditions, which include the use of a chess clock as well as the rules of silence, touch-move and touch-take. At the end of the club, popular chess variants are permitted such as exchange chess, losing chess and confusion chess to name a few, and the boys even invent their own variants! Coaching involves demo-board displays covering a wide range of topics, games analysis and puzzle-solving. Some very enthusiastic boys even choose to continue solving puzzles during ‘fun time’ at the end. Regular internal competitions are held throughout the academic year with prizes available for the winners. At the end of the academic year, prizes are also awarded for conduct, improvement and all-round achievement.

Inter and intra school competitions

An online school club and tournaments were set up on Lichess during the first lockdown of the pandemic, with club members regularly playing and practising on the site, which has no doubt aided the progress they have made. Strong links have been established between the school and the Coventry Chess Academy, one of England’s leading junior chess clubs, enabling pupils a pathway to chess out of school. Links have also been established with local schools to play friendly chess fixtures.

In 2022-2023, Warwick Junior School joined the Coventry Schools Chess League, the only primary school to claim this distinction, and have finished second in division 2 in both of their first two seasons. Billy Fellowes became top board of the Senior School A team while still in Year 3 and has helped the team to win division 1 every season since. Billy and Ajay Prinjha also represented a unified Warwick School team in the National Schools Chess Championship while they were still in the Junior School. In 2023-2024, Warwick Junior School won the Warwickshire Zonal of the Warwickshire Primary Schools with 100%. In the final, they won the bronze medals, missing silver by just half a point behind the very strong teams from Birmingham, with Warwick Junior School alumnus Gregory Kornilovich proving a very capable assistant team manager! 

An annual Blitz chess tournament co-organised with Warwick Senior School was launched during the 2021-2022 academic year, with England’s leading chess arbiter, Alex Holowczak, providing his expert services every year at this event. Warwick Junior School pupils occupied the majority of the top positions in the first two events, with Billy also winning the Weaving Cup (named for school alumnus FIDE Master Richard Weaving).

Every year, Warwick Junor School enters the UK Schools Chess Challenge (UKCC), the UK’s largest chess tournament in which thousands of schoolchildren across the UK compete. Warwick Junior School was the 5th best school in the West Midlands for the 2021 UKCC and numerous members have played in the Megafinal and Gigafinal stages of the UKCC with Billy making it as far as the Terafinal, the Grand Final of the competition. 

Chess beyond school 

Since 2019, numerous Warwick Junior School pupils have medalled in junior chess tournaments held as part of the Warwickshire Junior Chess Grand Prix and even taking outright first place, with Beau Richards being the most recent school pupil to do the trick, at the 2024 Birmingham Junior Open. A number of Warwick Junior School pupils have been invited to play for the Warwickshire Junior Chess Squad and they have proved their worth by accumulating a very impressive points tally on behalf of the county, with Ilyas Rashid and James Palmer-Brown notably scoring 100% on their respective debuts for ‘The Bears’. Both have gone on to represent the county in numerous regional events and in online inter-county battles. Some pupils have even taken the step up to play and win games in adult chess tournaments and in the Leamington & District Chess League.  

During his four years at Warwick Junior School, Billy Fellowes' rise in the chess world was meteoric and undoubtedly inspired many of his fellow pupils. He reached the number 2 spot in his national age group and won numerous tournaments, both junior and adult. He represented England on various occasions, including the European Youth Championship, the European Youth Rapid & Blitz Chess Championship, the Glorney Cup and the World Cadets Rapid & Blitz Championship. By his final year in the Junior School, he was already strong enough to qualify for the English Chess Championship and achieve draws and wins against chess masters in standardplay tournaments in which individual games can last over six hours.