I guess most children are shown all the moves in 20 minutes or so and then encouraged to start a complete game.

My view is that this, while well intentioned, is the wrong approach, and is why many children, although showing early enthusiasm, are put off the game, often for life.

Educational theory teaches us that there are much more effective ways of teaching chess to beginners. A good place to start is by considering the different requirements of novices and experts, which you can do by reading this excellent article by leading education author and blogger David Didau.

How would I define a novice? As a very general guide, I’d consider a novice to be anyone rated under 1000, an expert as anyone 2000+ and an intermediate player as anyone in between.

0 – complete beginner
250 – lower level primary school player
500 – typical primary school player
750 – higher level primary school player
1000 – older social player
1250 – entry level competitive player
1500 – below average competitive player
1750 – average competitive player
2000 – strong competitive player
2250 – master player
2500 – grandmaster
2750 – world class grandmaster
3000 – theoretical human maximum (some engines play well above this level)

You’d expect to score about 75% against someone 250 points below you, and about 95% against someone 500 points below you. Me? I’ve been about 2000 strength for the past 50 years or so – but I’d still consider myself a novice at many aspects of chess.

So most primary school players are novices (there are exceptions: 8-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan, from Harrow, already has a 2000 rating).

Novice tuition involves step-by-step learning, repetition, reinforcement and feedback. So, within Chess Heroes clubs (and books), both designed for players up to about 1500 strength, we take this approach.

• We only accept children aged 7+ (Operational Stage) unless they can display exceptional maturity
• We require proactive parental support from parents of younger children – the younger they are the more support they will need
• We use child-centred, skill-based tuition rather than expert-level lecturing and competitive play