East Grinstead Primary School Jamboree: 15th May 2005

The East Grinstead Primary Schools Chess Jamboree is an annual event designed to encourage the playing of chess by primary school aged children in East Grinstead and surrounding area. The event was eagerly attended by eight East Grinstead schools - The Meads, Estcots, Fonthill Lodge, Lingfield Notre Dame, Turners Hill, Blackwell, Copthorne, and Halsford Park .

Fonthill Lodge, who are one of the increasing numbers of schools in East Grinstead who run chess as part of the main curriculum, came 1st place with an impressive score of 12.5 out of 15. Fonthill Lodge were lead by their star player Oskar Schortz (aged 11) who is a top county player for Sussex and won all 5 of his games. Also playing for Fonthill were Richard Thorburn aged 11, Katherine Lane aged 8, David Ball aged 11 and Matthew Hacke also aged 11.

Turners Hill came second on 10 points, with an amazing performance from 3 very promising young ladies - Rhiannon Williams aged 11, Danielle Robinson aged 11 and Alice Robinson aged 8 – who proved convincingly that girls are just as good at chess as boys, if not better. The Meads came 3rd place on 9.5 points, coming from their top young players Edward Reeves-Dienes (aged 9), Daniel Haynes (aged 10), Hamish Lawson (aged 9) and Alex Sullivan (aged 8). The Meads runs an extra-curricular chess club fortnightly on Fridays which is very popular.
Prizes in the individual sections went to Gareth Jones, aged 10 from Halsford Park , for first place in the non-school winners section, Julian Norris aged 9 from Estcots in second place, and Will Thompson aged 11 from Blackwell for third place. Also in the non-school winners section, prizes went to Kathryn Legg from Estcots aged 9 (Best Girl), Gus Crowards aged 11 and Chris Daly aged 9 both from The Meads for best grading improvement, Samuel Lloyd-Skinner from Forest Row (Best Year 1), Edward Deshmuhk-Reeves (Best Year 2), Paul Deshmuhk-Reeves and Charlotte Giles (Best Year 4’s), Anthony Foruria (Best Year 5), Ian McCheyne and Cameron Pettit (Best Year 6’s) and Olivia (aged 9) and Sam (aged 6) Johnson both from Lingfield Notre Dame for the Best Newcomer’s Award.

Special mentions for good play also go to Toby Elliott from The Meads, Richard Astley from Estcots, Jake Edwards from Estcots, Luke Panayi from The Meads, Alex and Andriana Panayi also from The Meads, and Francesca Sterling and Liam Henderson, both from Estcots.