At The Heart of Mary School, we believe chess is a very useful pedagogical tool to help children focus their attention span, develop their creativity, enhance their intellectual activity and move from simple to complex thoughts by promoting strategies and trouble shooting and, all this, within a game framework that they learn to internalise by playing in a fun way.

In this respect, the chess game is a very complete activity that makes easy the student’s neural structuring, introduces him in calculation at a very early age and is encouraged to reflect on supporting strategies keeping a playful feeling.

Not only does chess enhance mental abilities but it is also very useful to strengthen values such as respect, patience, responsibility for one’s own acts, and acceptance of the game rules either in success or failure in order to favour an integral growth.

Besides chess, some traditional board games like cards and ludo are considered to be very useful as educational tools and are also at hand in The Heart of Mary classrooms.