The members of the I.S. 318 chess team are proud of the trophy they won at the National High School Championship.
The community of Brooklyn in New York City has a big reason to be proud. The chess players at Brooklyn’s Intermediate School 318 are really good. They have won more national chess tournaments than any other middle school team in the country. This year, they even won the National High School Championship. It’s the first time a middle school team has done this!
What makes the players at this school so good? All sixth graders at I.S. 318 take a chess class with a chess teacher. She teaches them how to plan their moves to win the game. They practice chess on game boards and on the computer for homework. More than 100 students are part of the after-school chess club.
The students play chess so well that people made a movie about them. It’s called Brooklyn Castle. The movie shows the lives of five students on the chess team. Many students on the team have had hard lives. Still, they have become champions.
The chess club also has not had it easy. New York City schools have less money than they once did to help pay for after-school programs. Sometimes the chess club has not had enough money to travel to tournaments. But people in the community have been helping. Some people gave money after seeing the movie. They want to help I.S. 318 keep its winning team.
Image credit: ©Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times via Redux Pictures
Related Link
- Brooklyn Castle
Watch a preview of the movie about the I.S. 318 chess team called Brooklyn Castle.
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