The project C.A.S.T.L.E. : a Chess curriculum to Advance Students´ Thinking and Learning skills in primary Education (this acronym reminds of the casteling move) was born from the idea of creating a strong partnership in the field of chess at school, under the influence of three partners with extensive experience in this: “Alfiere Bianco” in Italy, “Deutsche Schulschachstiftung” (German Foundation Chess in Schools) in Germany, “Club Ajedrez 64 Villalba” in Spain. Our common thought is that chess in school encourage the growth of individuals, involving the peculiar abilities of human nature: understanding of the laws of cause and effect, the ability to choose and interpret relationships, developing abilities like self-determination and accountability. This is what we want to teach children through chess, making them understand that to continue along the chosen path in life constructively, you always need some help, because the human being is organized in a collective society. From this comes the importance of such a didactic-pedagogical basic approach: chess, as well as they develop concentration, creativity, analytical skills, decision-making, memory, perseverance, with immediate positive impact at the school level, teach also that to get results we must learn to relate to others, accepting their presence and exploiting it feeling accepted. Therefore, through the game of chess at school all those mechanisms that, on a large scale, realize social integration, fight against discrimination, bullying prevention, social cohesion and reduct the crime rate, are widely facilitated at the social level. The game is a training for life, in which one learns to face difficulties, defeats and even successes and victories: understanding their processes helps to develop critical thinking, patience, acceptance of defeat, determination and the ability of a strategic approach, essential skills to deal with the actions that you perform every day, in a world like a big chessboard, made of “black nights and white days”. (Jorge L. Borges). The work of chess instructors, introduced into the schools as external experts, is the primary mode still existing in the world for starting-up "Chess in Schools" projects, if we leave out the few countries where the Education Ministry has launched a training program for teachers and chess have entered the educational system, introduced as a subject by teachers. The current model, however, has several gaps, not from a technical point of view, but from that of the continuity over the years, with poor results in terms of learning and education of pupils. Another point is that the pedagogical preparation of a teacher and his peculiar knowledge of pupils certainly make the learning environment more favourable compared to the use of an expert, who has’t any relational continuity with the class group and who has not received the same quality of training. From this awareness comes the whole structure of CASTLE project, which is dynamically aimed at teachers (50), indicating a useful way to transfer to them technical skills so that they can hold chess lessons and program them in their school hours. The tools to provide them, introduced in this project in the five classes of Primary School, in addition to training and the use of chess instructors (20) in the role of tutors, are psycho motricity on the giant chess board, chess "on the school desk" and chess activity on the WEB. The program of courses consists in starting-up 5 first classes and 5 second classes with psycho motricity, 5 third classes with chess on the desk and WEB, the first year and in each country (900 children). The second and third year, each class will slip in the next protocol, which will already have been revised and improved through working groups composed of teachers and tutors. The peculiarity of the project is the capacity to provide all the information the world of school, in order to transform education through a more active use of the intelligence of children, with the help of appropriate measurement tools provided by the University of Turin and the ministerial bodies of the three countries. In the last analysis this is a help in changing the educational policies of the states, in complete harmony with the Declaration of the European Parliament on the introduction of "Chess in Schools" in the education systems of the Member States of 15/03/2012.
The C.A.S.T.L.E. project: a Chess Curriculum to Advance Students' Thinking and Learning Skills in Primary Education was born from the idea of using chess as a pedagogic tool in primary school. During the three years of the project, we have dynamically addressed the teachers, under the thrust of three partners all with great chess and school experience: Alfiere Bianco in Italy, the Deutsche Schulschachstiftung in Germany and the Club Ajedrez 64 Villalba in Spain. There were three partner schools: the I.C. "Muzzone" in Racconigi (CN), the CEIP San Miguel Arcangel of Villalba (Madrid) and the Grundschule Gartnerplatz in Munich. The shared starting point was the belief that school chess nourishes the growth of individuals by involving and improving some of the particular abilities of human nature: problem solving, metacognitive and psychomotor skills as well as social and relational skills. The partners involved in evaluating the outcome of the chess activities on the aforementioned areas were the University of Turin (Prof. Trinchero) and two partners from Ministries of Education: the Regional School for Piedmont and the Dirección General de Innovación, Becas y Ayudas a la Educación of the Madrid region. 45 teachers and their respective classes were involved in the three countries, and together with chess experts they created a chess curriculum for the five grades of primary school: psychomotor activity on giant chessboard, use of chess in classrooms "on desk" and chess activity on the web (Victorís Chess House). The results of the intervention were very positive: in the giant chessboard activity, the children of the experimental group improved their psychomotor skills more than the control group on all the items detected with an external observer, while in the logical-mathematical and metacognitive areas results have been undoubtedly positive, though with the gap between experimental and control classes not always so obvious. As regards the questionnaires submitted to the teachers relating to the project's impact on their professionalization, they were fully satisfied with the activities of the CASTLE Project, and confirmed (in 88% of cases) the practicality of transferring the skills they had gained on to their colleagues and, above all, the perception of a "benefit" for students, in respect of the following dimensions: classroom climate; peer collaboration; participation and involvement of all students; cross-competency development. Participating in the CASTLE project as a stakeholder from the beginning, FIDE (the World Chess Federation) has greatly increased the interest in CASTLE at international level. FIDE has also officially incorporated our psychomotor activities in their training program for teachers (Early Years Skills Program - eys.fide.com). The European Chess Union (ECU) included the CASTLE project in the conference held at the European Parliament in Brussels on 24 February 2016, and also officially approves our CASTLE curriculum in its School Chess Teacher Certificate. In Italy, the Italian Chess Federation has included the entire CASTLE curriculum in its teacher training program, and probably some part of CASTLE will be included in a list of nationally recognised training methods for teachers in Spain. To date, the main way of launching "Chess in Schools" projects in Europe has been by using chess instructors, external chess experts, with a significant cost to school administrations. With the CASTLE project we have been able to suggest a valid alternative to affirm the pedagogical use of chess in schools by having the schools' own teachers carry out the various class activities, in their classes in a completely autonomous way, during school hours. We also have the idea that those teachers may, in the future, become trainers of their colleagues in the school. Finally CASTLE wants to be a help in changing the education policies of the states, in full compliance with the European Parliament Declaration of 15/03/2012, which calls for the introduction of "Chess in Schools" in the education systems of the Member States, suggesting an easy-to-use template, specially created and tested with precision (over 5,000 measurement tools compiled and analyzed in three years) without any external experts and which can be disseminated independently by the schools, not only internally but also to other schools.