(Stephen O'Kell, Portsmouth University; and Dave Bessant, IWBDA)

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RATIONALE

There are 7 bridge clubs on the Isle of Wight. The membership of the bridge clubs is mainly people over 60 years of age. Over the last few years, the majority of clubs have been experiencing dwindling numbers. This has been thought to occur because the number of members who cease playing bridge, for any number of reasons, is higher than the number of individuals who commence playing bridge on the Island.

If this problem is not to continue, resulting in bridge clubs having to close, it requires a range of strategies. There are already bridge classes on the Island for those who want to learn to play the game, or for those who want to improve their abilities. What was missing on the Island, in common with most other areas of the country, was an influx of young players who wanted to start playing the game.

It was noted that none of the schools on the Isle of Wight offered bridge as part of their extra-curricular activities. Therefore, one person, Dave Bessant, decided to take up the challenge of introducing bridge into Island schools.

BACKGROUND

Fortunately, a number of bridge players on the Isle of Wight are current teachers or ex-teachers. After an initial consultation between the teachers and the project leader, an assessment of how bridge might be introduced to schools on the Island concluded that it should be introduced at key stage 2, preferably to years 5 and 6 pupils of primary schools, and preferably as part of the maths curriculum and/or as an optional activity within a school club. An early decision was that the project would teach mini-bridge (a simplified form of bridge that has been introduced by the English Bridge Union [EBU] for children).

The EBU was provided with details of the project before it started and they were very supportive. Alison Nicolson, the EBU officer responsible for the development of the game with children, visited the Isle of Wight to provide her support. Also, John Pain, Head of education at the EBU, has been a continuing source of support and encouragement. The local Sports Council was contacted and they provided a further contact at the local council, who had responsibility for education. Both of these organisations have provided ongoing support. Fortunately, there was a local ongoing project that focussed on children undertaking activities within school time at one local school. This was the opening that was required into the maths lessons.

The head teacher or head of maths at each school involved in the project was initially contacted to see if they were interested in being involved in the project. The project leader then recruited a number of experienced bridge players from around the Island as volunteer teaching assistants who would provide an important role in helping the children to handle the cards. After 2 or 3 weeks, these volunteers were no longer needed, although a couple of them were happy to be kept on for use on an occasional basis. The project leader and assistants involved in the project were required to undergo a background check with the Criminal Records Board Disclosure Procedure prior to being allowed to help with the introduction of bridge into the schools. The initial idea was, at the outset, that there should be one assistant at each table of four children who were learning bridge. The assistants were required to provide immediate ‘hands-on’ explanations, help and advice to the pupils, which was not available from the majority of maths teachers, who themselves could not play bridge. It was assumed at the start of the project that, in subsequent weeks, fewer assistants would be required in class, as it was expected that the initial enthusiasm of the majority of helpers might wane. This has partly been offset by participating maths teachers slowly learning the game and being able to provide more help in class.

The project commenced at the start of the 2004/5 school year. The children chosen in the early schools were average and above average at maths. Although the children in the first school contacted were introduced to mini-bridge, it became obvious that this form of bridge does not require a great deal of maths. This was a problem as the 9 and 10 year old children chosen for the project were average or above average in their maths sets. After a few weeks of listening to, and observing, the children in class, it was obvious that the children were interested in, and could cope with, wider aspects of bridge. Therefore, the sessions moved on to using trumps, finessing, probabilities, vulnerabilities and scoring. Surprisingly, the kids seemed to understand the concepts without too much difficulty, although they did need to be reinforced and utilised in practice. Thus, on the Isle of Wight, because it was found that the children could cope conceptually with all the basics of bridge, the decision was made to introduce children to the full concepts of bridge, albeit in a rather basic form that was suitable for beginners to learn the game.

Until Easter in this first year of the project, the project leader had used his own copies of Bridge Baron (a bridge playing programme) and Bridge Manager (a personal play library of bridge hands) as teaching resources. After Easter, an offer from the company that produces the software, allowed for each school included in the project to be provided with free copies of the software for inclusion onto the school file servers. This enabled the software to be used in-class as teaching resources and enabled the keener pupils to be able to learn and play outside the formal classroom sessions. In addition, each school was provided with extensive bridge notes that provided the essential information that was to be delivered in class via the PowerPoint presentation software. Subsequently, the project leader has been developing additional software that can be used with Bridge Baron that can enable anyone to learn the basics of bridge from scratch. This software will be available to the schools in the next school year.

From the project leader’s point of view, the project has been a great success in terms of the number of schools and number of children who have been introduced to bridge over a small period of time. It is anticipated that all the schools that are participating in the project will want to continue offering bridge in their schools, both to the children who can already play bridge (this will be used as a reward for students who complete the required work) and to the new year 5 children. The bridge lessons in the new school year will all be delivered by the maths teachers, using the resources that will be made available to them and, where appropriate, contacting the project leader for advice and support.