Ficheall Schools Chess Tournament 

Ficheall volunteer teachers have organised 10 tournaments for the 63 schools in the Cork region who registered with Ficheall in 2022/2023.

This year’s tournaments have 1360 students representing their school in chess with 4080 chess games to take place at various locations across the city.

Below are some photographs from the various tournaments that have already taken place.

Registrations for Féile Fichille Chess Tournaments in early 2023 are now OPEN - register here.

(deadline to register is Fri Oct 21st)

Ficheall.ie is the national network of primary teachers promoting chess in their schools for the social and cognitive benefits it has for primary school students. Ficheall.ie teachers use chess as a tool to teach through and an opportunity for their students to develop new skills and values, as well as representing their school at Ficheall tournaments.

The Ficheall.ie website contains many excellent resources created by fellow primary school teachers such as:

●       A series of 10 beginner chess lessons (with optional integration to the SPHE curriculum)

●       Listed CPD courses for teachers (summer, evening and online courses)

●       Chess numeracy puzzles

●       Ficheall newsletters with chess updates

Féile Fichille Chess Tournaments

Cork Education Support Centre have partnered with the Ficheall network of teachers this year to give your school the opportunity to play fun and friendly games of chess at a one-day tournament in early 2023. Such a tournament is organised geographically and is called Féile Fichille or Chess Festival. Féile Fichille tournaments are non-competitive events as no medals, prizes or trophies are presented. Instead, the day is a celebration of the students’ learning chess and social skills as well as their teachers’ leadership skills to introduce the initiative in their school. For many students it is their first opportunity to wear their school jersey and represent their school. Before school shutdown in March 2020, Féile Fichille tournaments had almost 4,000 students, across 32 tournaments, from over 200 schools take part. We are delighted that 2023 will see the return to face-to-face Ficheall tournaments. Féile Fichille tournaments are divided into two sections; Masters' Section for 5th & 6th class, and Buds' Section for 3rd & 4th class. More details about Féile Fichille Tournaments can be found here (including a checklist to ensure students are ready for the Féile Fichille tournament).

Fees

The fee for each 8-player team entry is €40 (€5 per player) and schools may register up to 4 teams in total, across Masters' and Buds' sections.  The deadline for both online registration and payment is October 21st 2022. Ficheall.ie is a network of voluntary primary school teachers and is a registered company limited by guarantee (a not for profit organisation). Financial statements and Ficheall policies can be viewed here.

Féile Fichille Timeline 2022/2023

●       October: Féile Fichille Tournament Deadline - Friday 21st October 2022 - Register Here (schools are asked to list unavailable dates in the registration form)

●       November: Schools informed of tournament date and venue (registration fee can be refunded if Féile Fichille date does not suit and Ficheall informed within 2 weeks)

●       January, February, March: Féile Fichille tournaments will be scheduled in term 2 of 2022/2023. Registered schools will be allocated one Féile Fichille tournament to attend. Schools are required to be at the venue at 9.30am with the event concluded by 2pm

Contact Us

If you have any queries regarding the Féile Fichille Tournaments please contact Ficheall using the Contact Us link here.

The Learning School Project has been a very successful collaborative project for the past number of years between Cork Education Support Centre and Limerick Education Centre.  Many schools have benefitted from participation in this project and we would again like to invite schools to get involved in the latest LSP project - LSP 13.  Schools will be supported by a number of webinars/hub meetings which will take place in person in CESC and LEC but will also be available via Zoom.  

We invite you to participate in this year’s cycle of the Learning School Project - LSP-13.  The framework for this project is the development of the school as a self-evaluating school, which is a key element of current national policy with particular reference to Looking at Our School (LAOS) and School Self-Evaluation (SSE).  Participation in LSP-13 will offer your school an opportunity to explore LAOS and decide on an aspect of the Teaching and Learning Dimension to focus on in terms of SSE, school development and school improvement.  Schools that have participated in the Learning School Project over the years have benefitted hugely from their own individual, context-based innovation and development and from their participation in the LSP Community of Practice.

To register please email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

1st Hub meeting on September 19th 2022

Dr Joe O’Connell will facilitate our first session 

The BLAST residency in St. Marys School in Rochestown was led by artist, Carol Healy.

The theme of this project was Visual Art with a particular focus on Land Art.

All of the artwork was created outdoors and then documented and preserved using photography.

Each photo was mounted on foam board to give a floating effect. The centre photo represents growth which is something the students were learning about at the time of this project.

The students also used watercolours and Chinese ink to create artwork which was then incorporated into a stack of mounted circular drawings to be displayed in the school.