The school has recently had 13 students - Daniel, Eunju, Ewan, Finn, Jackson, Jake, Kane, Lachlan, Maggie, Micah, Nathan, Nicholas & Sebastian - competing across 3 separate interschool chess tournaments.

Our first competition was in the Hills Zone, where Coromandel Valley finished in 3rd place, winning the Bronze Medal.   Finn and Jackson, who are both only in Reception, were competing in their first tournaments, and both boys did well to win games, including a victory over Year 6 for Finn, and Jackson being awarded the Fair Play award for the day.   Daniel and Kane were best placed from Coro, finishing in equal 4th place out of 50 competitors, with 5 wins from 7 games.  Of our 10 students competing, 6 either set new or equalled their previous personal bests. 

Our second event was at the very strong Southern Zone Tournament.  After being in the top 3 places for the first four rounds, we struck some harder competition and eventually slipped to 5th place, which is still a great result against some very good chess schools.  Congratulations to Daniel, who was once again the best of the Coro players, finishing in equal 14th place of 71 competitors on 4.5 wins from his 7 games, and to Maggie, who was playing in her first tournament.    Of our 11 players, a further 5 personal bests were recorded, with the lowest score being 3 wins - a fanstic team effort.

Finally, Eunju, Maggie, Micah & Helena travelled to Burnside Primary School, for a girls only competition. Burnside Primary School dominated the tournament with 26 out of a possible 28 points, but the fight for the remaining medal places was very close, 3 schools very close all day.  Unfortunately, Coromandel Valley just missed out on a medal, finishing 1 point behind 2nd place and 1/2 point behind 3rd place.  The girls played really well and all set new personal bests.   Eunju was our highest placed competitor, finishing in 6th place on 5 points.

Congratulations to all of our players for representing our school so well. 

Huge thanks to Kerry Coghlan, Opal Greenwood, Natalie Fleming, Andrew General & Alicia Melbourne for assisting with transport and enabling our students to take part - without your help it would not have been possible.

The Chess Club continues to meet on Monday lunchtimes, and anyone is welcome to come along. It would be great to see some new faces.

David Shaw