Vineyard School

Spring Term 2025

I am delighted to announce that the Chess Club will continue at The Vineyard School during Spring Term 2025, on Friday afternoons, from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m.  There will be two classes, one for Y2 & Y3 and one for Y4, Y5 & Y6. The chess club will be run by myself and another member of staff from Richmond Junior Chess Club (rjcc.org.uk). All standards will be catered for.

Bookings continue as termly. The dates for Spring Term are: January 10th, 17th, 24th & 31st; February 7th, 14th & 28th; March 7th, 14th, 21st & 28th, a total of 11 sessions in the term. There will be a break for half-term on March 21st. The cost of the club will be £110 for the term, which is £10 per session pro rata. There will be space for a maximum of 14 children from Y2/3 and 16 from Y4/5/6. We need to strictly enforce these limits.

Booking will use a web form, which can be found at: https://rjcc.org.uk/schools/vineyard-school. Bookings will open from 7 p.m. on Thursday, 19th December. The web-page will be available to read, but the Booking Form will not show on the page until then.

A limited number of places have been allocated by the school as deprivation places. The parents of the children concerned have been given a Priority Code, which guarantees them a place in the club and reduces the price to zero.

Some children from Years 3 to 6 are of suitable playing strength to compete for the school in this academic year. They have each also been given a Priority Code, which guarantees them a place, but they must naturally pay the normal rate.

If you have been given a Priority Code for your child, please take the place quickly.  If your child no longer wants to take part, let me know by email at richmond_junior_chess_club@hotmail.com as soon as possible, please. This is only fair to other children and parents.

Other children can join the club on a first come, first served basis. If there is no space available at the time they apply, they are also welcome to register in a waiting list, and if a place becomes free, the first child in the waiting list will be invited to take the place.

Note that although the payment gateway is provided by Paypal, you do not have to have a Paypal account to make payment. Simply click on the button which says “Pay by Debit or Credit Card”.

In Years 4 to 6, weekly games between children of a suitable standard will be played with clocks and sent for rating by the English Chess Federation. To allow for the games to be rated, we need to ask for the children’s Dates of Birth. The DOBs will be passed on to the English Chess Federation, which will use the DOB exclusively to distinguish between players of similar name, and to determine eligibility for age restricted tournaments. The DOBs will only be available to ECF staff engaged in maintaining the ECF rating system and will never be passed on to any third party.

Sign-Up for Vineyard Primary School

Please use the forms at the pages linked below to sign up your children: 

The text of this letter can be read at: https://rjcc.org.uk/schools/vineyard-school.