Hallfield School Chess – End of Spring Term 2025

IAPS Online Chess Championship – Hallfield are Champions

On Thursday 27 Feb our leading players congregated in the IT room to prepare for the first ever online IAPS chess championship. There were team and individual titles at stake and stiff competition from schools all over the country. Once the nerve racking process of getting everyone logged into their online chess accounts was accomplished the actual playing of the games went fairly smoothly with some solid chess skills on show from everyone.

Our U13 squad was led by our top player Krish who was on great form that day, finishing the event as IAPS U13 individual Champion, winning all of his games bar one. His brilliant score, together with scores from Aarav, Arnav and Handuo, secured Hallfield first place, just ahead of Blue Coat in second place and St Martin’s in third.

In the U9 tournament it was neck and neck until the final 10 minutes when the smoke cleared, Hallfield were placed second just behind a strong team from Haberdashers’ and ahead of Blue Coat in third place. Our rising star Anthony was placed third in the individual competition.

Warwickshire Primary Schools Team Championship – Hallfield are Champions

A few days later, on 1 March, Hallfield competed in the final of the Warwickshire Primary School Team Championship at Solihull School with our team of Krish, Handuo and Jasper. Our top scorer was Handuo who won all 7 of his games on board 2, a fantastic effort. It was a very tough event with especially strong teams from Warwick Junior/Prep, Blue Coat and Solihull but we played tough, consistent chess and came out as Warwickshire School Champions again, well done.

Coventry Junior Open – 23 March

Lot’s of Hallfield players competed in Coventry with the following medal winners:

Bronze medal winners: Jonathan, Arthur, Alex, Jacob, Declan, Shray, Aariyan, Anthony

Silver Medal Winners: Hayder, James

Gold Medal and U11 A Group Winner: Krish Gandhi

Maths Lecture 26 March

Several players attended a chess themed maths lecture at Birmingham University, kindly organised by Mr Hewer. The lecture was fascinating and certainly opened our players eyes to the complexity which sits at the heart of chess.

County U9 & U11 Events

There were County U9 and U11 events in March and 14 of our players were invited to take part. Hallfield players regularly make up between 30% – 50% of the County teams, an amazing tribute to the strength in depth of our fantastic players.

Upcoming event

On Saturday 5th April a squad of 14 players will take part in the IAPS Chess Championship (in person this time, not online) at Aldro School. We are the reigning U11 and U13 champions and will be doing our best to retain the titles we have held for the past few years. Good luck to those taking part