Is playing chess an asset for academic success?
Does playing chess promote learning at school? Although this question dates back to the 19th century, it was in the 2000s that initiatives aimed at promoting chess really took off in schools. What are the real benefits of this approach? What do teachers think?
Fabien Groeninger, University of Montpellier and Yves Léal, University of Toulouse
Chess, which has long suffered from a dusty image in society, is now in vogue among young people as a result of series such as The Queen's Gambit (2020), the development of e-sports, and initiatives by French NBA star Victor Wembanyama. Last July, Wembanyama proposed combining basketball and chess in a single competition, emphasizing that "we need a variety of things to be able to grow."
Since the 1970s, there has been a growing number of initiatives, initially isolated, to introduce chess into classrooms, based on the belief that playing this game would help students develop a range of skills and promote academic learning.
Do initial reports from the field confirm this? What approach to learning does the use of chess allow?
Local trials before widespread implementation
The value of chess for academic learning is nothing new. Traces of it can be found as far back as the19thcentury, such as this letter from a reader to a specialist magazine suggesting thatpupils be kept occupied during break times with a "noble pastime." However, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that concrete initiatives began to emerge, often in the form of school clubs.
In some "pilot schools, " chess is sometimes incorporated into the students' timetable with compulsory lessons. That said, a thesis defended in 1988 shows that chess is still often an extracurricular or after-school activity.
When teachers use chess in the classroom, with the approval of their superiors, some emphasize that they feel chess develops skills such as intuition and spatial reasoning, but they are not certain that students' progress in these areas is solely attributable to learning chess.
In 2007, when an American study showed the benefits of chess for students struggling with math and complex problem solving, the French Chess Federation, which had become a sports federation, signed a framework agreement with the Ministry of Education to officially regulate and authorize the practice of chess in classrooms.
However, these projects remain the preserve of teachers who are chess enthusiasts, often club players, who convert their chess experience into teaching methods in the classroom.
The Class’Échecs program
Throughout the 2000s, numerous international studies have demonstrated the benefits of chess for students. Some countries have incorporated chess into their school curricula or implemented significant initiatives.
In France, in 2022, the French Chess Federation (FFE) launched the Class’Échecs program and signed an amendment to the agreement to promote its development in elementary schools. Four principles were put forward:
- The program is open to all teachers, regardless of their chess level.
- Chess becomes a means of developing academic skills and is not an end in itself.
- the program is cooperative, to promote the development of social and interpersonal skills;
- The content is designed from an educational perspective, for use in the classroom, and all materials are made available to teachers free of charge. The FFE also offers game kits for sale at reduced prices so that schools can equip themselves at a lower cost.
The initiative quickly proved successful, with around 2,000 teachers participating in the first year. By 2025, that number had grown to more than 8,000, representing 160,000 students introduced to chess each year. https://www.youtube.com/embed/GNCs2OJVH64?wmode=transparent&start=0 Report on Class’Échecs (France 3 Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, 2023).
The survey conducted in 2022-2023 among teachers who offer Class'Échecs provides a better understanding of their interest in the project. They see it as a way of teaching mathematics differently. They note a high level of involvement and interest among students and also consider that these sessions develop moral and civic education skills. However, 87% of these teachers have very little or no knowledge of chess and therefore offer this teaching without mastering the content, even though chess is often considered a complicated game.
The keys to success: a form of comprehensive education
Why are school teachers who are not trained in teaching chess and do not master its fundamentals embarking on this adventure? Some possible answers are suggested in the 2022-2023 survey and refer to a form of comprehensive education whose roots date back to the 19th century.
Firstly, the project approach transcends the compartmentalization of school subjects, which is particularly relevant in primary education where teachers are multi-skilled. It is of undeniable interest to teachers because it gives meaning to learning, leading to greater engagement from students who associate school more with the pleasure of learning.
It promotes a more holistic view of the student, where different skills linking the body and mind are worked on during the same teaching session. Chess as a teaching tool seems particularly well suited: the playful aspect stimulates interest and engagement, and handling the pieces facilitates the transition from experimentation to abstraction.
Language skills are not a prerequisite for success, as the visual-spatial nature of the situations directly addresses cognitive functions without requiring mastery of linguistic code, which can be a real obstacle for some students. The possibility of creating open-ended problems also allows failures to be anchored in mathematics, a real institutional necessity, while questioning students' disciplinary awareness.
Finally, at a time when AI and the Internet are making knowledge accessible to all, the project invites teachers to change their approach to encourage discussion and debate, encouraging students to build their learning collectively.
Fabien Groeninger, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, LIRDEF (Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory in Didactics, Education, and Training), University of Montpellier and Yves Léal, Senior Lecturer in Education Sciences, University of Toulouse
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.