I VISITED Covingham Park Junior School on six consecutive Fridays to teach each class, both staff and children, to play Go.

Covingham Park has four year groups, Y3 to Y6, with two classes of about 30 children in each. With the help of a giant magnetic board, I used three sessions for each year group, ie about 60 children per session, to cover the basics: the rules of etiquette and how to play the game. This took the first four of the six Fridays. 

Meanwhile, the school had joined the BGA (British Go Association) and bought equipment and books. The children had been told about my visits and that they could buy Go starter sets for £1. 

These consist of a cardboard starter set and a very child-friendly cartoon rule booklet. Nearly 100 children, out of a school population of about 240, had already paid for their starter sets before my first visit. 

Once I had started the teaching sessions, the natural enthusiasm of the children began to create its own momentum and soon a Go Club had been formed, run by one of the teachers. So many children had joined that there had to be two sessions a week for different year groups to accommodate everyone. 

The fifth Friday provided an opportunity for me to concentrate on the children who were regularly attending the, by now, thriving Go Club. It was also the last teaching session before the children took part in a proper tournament, the UK Go Challenge 2004. 

Having learnt on the beginners' board (a 9 x 9 board), the children were already quite well versed in the cut-and-thrust of the game. To prepare them for the tournament, which would be on the intermediate 13 x 13 board, I concentrated on opening strategies and how to evaluate the progress of both sides during the game. 

The children had begun to learn some of the terminology of the game and were using the Japanese words for the concepts when discussing their games. 

Thinking about Thinking. 

Metacognition – thinking about thinking – is vital in Go, so I got the children to start thinking about how they were thinking during a game about various challenges facing them. 

For example, the status of groups – ie which groups were unconditionally "alive"? Which were dead? Which indeterminate? 

Another challenge – who was ahead in a "semeai" (a race to capture between two adjacent groups that cannot both live)? Could the side that was losing the semeai win it through careful thinking? 

The UK Go Challenge. 

The last of my six Fridays was the day of the UK Go Challenge, the first part of which took place in schools. Qualifiers could go through to the national finals. 

I ran the tournament with the invaluable help of two of my top players from The Wycombe Grange, as well as three adult players. 

Altogether 46 children from the school club took part in this all-day event, playing five rounds. Two children won through with five wins out of five – and neither was a Year 6 child! There were lots of prizes and certificates. 

Headteacher Colin Green was delighted with his pupils' success, which he said was independent of both age and academic profile with some of the younger ones being the most successful. He said: 

"One child, who in normal classroom circumstances, finds concentration and perseverance a challenge, and receives additional support, concentrated throughout the entire day without a single negative incident. 

"Indeed there was evidence of quite the opposite with not only improvement in the child's self-esteem, but also in the way her peers viewed her. This was evident in other pupils, where self-esteem and peer-esteem were raised."

Covingham Park will take part in the 2005 UK Go Challenge. By this time the children will have gained more experience. Many of them are also eager to take part in the British Youth Go Championships early next year. 

The school deserves credit for the fact that pupils were so willing to try something new and unusual on the recommendation of their teachers. 

I have great admiration for the staff at Covingham Park. Nothing can succeed in a school without good leadership and a well-trained, experienced, professional and highly-motivated staff – including teachers, learning and all other support staff, and helpers – creating and sustaining a supportive environment for children and their learning. 

When visiting the various year groups I learned that the school used brain gym exercises so they were already fully aware of the importance of thinking skills. 

Colin Green told me: "We introduced brain gym exercises a few years ago, and now regularly and routinely undertake such activities throughout the school day in order to ensure children have good habits to do with thinking and have regular 'brain breaks'."

Go Beacon School. 

In recognition of the huge strides that Covingham High has made in the world of Go, in a relatively short time, the BGA, in September, awarded the school beacon school status, highly coveted as it is awarded to very few schools. Colin commented: "I'm absolutely delighted that we now have a flourishing Go club and it’s so good for the children to be awarded Go beacon school status. The tournament in July reminded all of us that we should never underestimate the potential of children." 

France Ellul is Head of English at The Wycombe Grange PRU, where he also teaches Go to EBD students. He can be contacted at mailto:fellul@bucksgfl.org.uk

British Go Association: mailto:bga@britgo.org

Website: http://www.britgo.org/

'The tournament reminded all of us that we should never underestimate the potential of children.'