How to organize a recess multi-week tournament at school

Good day. I am a teacher at a High School and I want to organize a tournament with the following conditions:

1. Swiss-system.
2. The tournament will last many weeks and be played during recess (no problem with playing during recess).
3. Every week, students will be paired and will have to play their opponent during recess (they can choose the day of the week they play, but by the end of the week they must have played).

How can I pair the students and keep track of the results? Do you know any software that allows for this, or is it easier to do it by hand? (There will not be many students, 20 tops).

Also, what should I do (points-wise) in the following situations?

• A student comes to play but their opponent doesn't (the first one comes every or most days of the week).
• Neither of the students come to play.
• A student comes some days and the other comes other days but they don't coincide so they don't play.

Thank you very much in advance.

Before I start, please know I have no experience setting up real tournaments myself, but have played in some.

I feel for all of these points, just make sure the players agree on a day. It shouldn't be a "show up and hope you opponent does too!" approach. If both are aware on the day to come, then here is how it should go. (3 talks about if they can't come up with a day.)

For if the opponent doesn't show up: Remind the student of the game and make it up the next day they both can play. If it happens again, mark it as a forfeit and give their opponent the point.

Again for the second point: Just make it up. If they again don't show up, I guess you can just forfeit the board and give nobody the point, or call it a draw. Your discretion. Of course, if they are sick, just delay it.

Point 3: Easily solved by having them just agree on a date. If impossible, see if they can find a time out of class to do it, possibly online. If they can't, again you can void the game and nobody gains a point.

Sorry if this doesn't help, I just tried to make some things that might make sense. When it comes to software/by hand, I think the best way is to just mark it in a notebook or google doc. Most USCF tournaments have a software subscription, but for school things, I doubt it is worth it. Paper/docs is easy, just keep a running record.

Would you be interested in joining the Student Led Chess Association? We help to bring chess clubs together for tournaments, scrimmages if you wish, and other charity tournaments. Depending where you are we may already have a league in your area, or will establish one in the future. This can be a great way for you to coordinate with other schools and organize such tournaments and expansion. With such a competition we could help organize and track all of the numbers. We will also do all of the pairing and organization with the other schools. As for your concerns on points: When an opponent does not show the person who did usually gets the point. If neither show then neither receive a point. Have the students agree on the date to try for that specific match

Either way we would be able to help you through that process and future competitions.

Please let me know if you want our help. You can reach out to me at at [email protected] or on this post if you wish.

Unfortunately in Spain the curriculum is dictated by law, so I (nor anybody) can't just remove an hour from any subject to change for chess (I wish I could).

I wouldn't say we are cloning.

There needs to be a curriculum (a base set of knowledge for teachers to teach), otherwise things would become very chaotic very quickly. This includes things like Spanish, Math, English, Geography, History, Biology, Chemistry, Music, Drawing, Tech, Computing, etc. It sets the minimum for 5-15 years old, let's say.

However, at some point (15 years old in Spain), students are given choices (sciences, human studies, arts, etc.) and they can follow the path they choose. Some of them will later go to University, others will pick a more professional formation and others will pursue the arts.

This doesn't mean they are clones. Every student is taught the minimum, but they then pick subjects (from a set of stablished subjects, again, I can't change those) according to their own preferences. Medical doctors need to learn different things than lawyers, mechanics, electricians, painters or dancers, but the base is the same. This is partly so that everybody learns some basic math, tech, music or spanish; partly so they can find out what they like and want to learn more about.

Regarding the diversity of skills that exist, I agree that those are important and needed skills in the real world, but if we were to teach all those skills, we would need many more years and resources we (sadly) don't have. There are just so many things we can cover, the rest is up to the students outside the school. I would love a subject about day-to-day things (change a tire, fill a form, fry an egg, sew a button, change a bulb, fix a faucet...), I thing it would be really useful for students. Then again, we can only do so much.