Leeds West and Pudsey MP Rachel Reeves was put through her paces when she played chess against children from three West Leeds schools.
Along with Malcolm Pein, chief executive of Chess in Schools and Communities (CSC), Ms Reeves visited Valley View Primary School in Rodley to meet the children who have weekly chess lessons.
Valley View’s chess masters were joined by youngsters from both Pudsey Waterloo and Stanningley primary schools.
Ms Reeves challenged the children and faced a stern test from the talented youngsters, who have taken to the game quickly.
Valley View, Pudsey Waterloo and Stanningley primary schools have all introduced chess into their curriculums thanks to the work of CSC, an educational charity.
Tutor Nick Mullan is teaching two lessons a week to over 60 children on Monday mornings at Valley View, which are proving extremely popular with the students. Other local tutors, Stephen Welham and Ernest Karumazondo teach weekly at Stanningley and Pudsey Waterloo. Pudsey Waterloo is new to the programme.
The children are benefiting from critical thinking, improved concentration, problem solving and pattern recognition, amongst many other skills, as part of their wider development.
CSC uses chess to promote key academic and social skills which provide some of the building blocks for employability in the new economy.
Ms Reeves said: “As someone who played chess regularly as a child, I know first-hand the benefits it brings to numeracy, social skills, strategy and problem solving. It was brilliant to meet children and staff and to see how well this programme is working at Valley View and Stanningley, with plans for it at Pudsey Waterloo too.”
Co-headteacher at Valley View, Sarah Griggs, was impressed with how the children concentrated for an hour and half while playing the games against Rachel Reeves.
Mrs Griggs said: “Our children are really benefiting from learning chess, it was great to see the way they concentrated today, I would recommend the CSC chess programme to other schools.”
CSC Yorkshire Coordinator, Dan Staples, said that it was a fantastic day and said: ‘Ot was great to have Rachel visit Valley View and see how much the children have learnt.
“The children very much enjoyed meeting Rachel and coming close to beating her! If any other schools in Yorkshire would like to hear more about helping their children with critical thinking through chess please get in touch with us.”
For more information on Chess in Schools and Communities, visit the website.
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This pic emphasises Rt Hon Rachel Reeves MP being a true winner.
Here she has made certain by taking the advantage of playing white on each and every board.
Had she lost any of those fixed games then she could always have blamed the mythical twenty-two billion pounds black hole. I use that excuse all the time, every bit as convincingly.
Well, you have very much overanalysed this situation. I am sure that all got some enjoyment from the occasion.
Its probably wiser, and safer, for Rachel Reeves to concentrate on meeting school children for the forseeable future, rather than meeting pensioners.