BrainMoves
Develops core cognitive skills through multi-purpose programming, independent of subject area.
BrainMoves is our program designed to strengthen core cognitive skills – concentration, working memory, and systematic thinking – through chess-based activities that any teacher can deliver, regardless of subject expertise.
Unlike ChessMath, which is built into mathematics instruction and requires educators with math expertise, BrainMoves is not dependent on educator specialty. A geography teacher, a language arts instructor, or a science educator can all deliver the same material with equal effectiveness. This flexibility means schools don’t need to wait for specialist availability, and instead can integrate cognitive training into their existing schedule and across multiple classrooms simultaneously.
The program operates through structured lesson blocks — typically 1-2 sessions per week, each lasting around an hour — where students engage with chess-based puzzles and scenarios. These activities build two things at once: they train concentration and working memory while simultaneously teaching explicit problem-solving and planning skills. By training both cognitive capacity and teaching cognitive skills, students learn to think ahead and sustain attention – capacities that are often neglected in traditional curricula.
Because the material isn’t tied to a specific subject area, teachers have flexibility in when and how to deploy it within their schedules, making BrainMoves easier to implement across diverse school contexts than discipline-specific programs.
HPS – Brain on the Schedule®
76% of teachers’ responses indicate that HPS has helped to shift students’ perception of what they can do. Pupils became better at recognising and tolerating each other, helping one another, taking care of each other’s belongings, and interacting with courtesy and respect.
Hjernen på skemaet (HPS) works with children and young people in special classes’ mental health and well-being through school chess.
Impact of Chess on Reading
When compared to a national level, student participants saw an average of a 5.4 percentile gain in reading proficiency scores. 68% of participants saw this increase, compared to 37% in the control group.
Researchers attribute this gain to increases in general intelligence, concentration, self-control, concentration, positive ego, and much more.
Areas of Cognitive Development
Skills examined: focus, visualisation (seeing different sequences of events on the board), analytical ability (thinking before deciding based on evaluating multiple options), abstract thinking, and planning
Important to note that the results of this study are only based on year 1 of the research, and that this study was done independently and was not peer-reviewed
Critical and Creative Thinking
Chess created a 16.8% increase in critical thinking scores and benefited critical thinking skills in these categories: 1.5x increase in originality , 2.5x increase in flexibility, and 5x increase in fluency.
Study size was N=94, with N=15 for the chess group. Out of the chess experimental group, 3/15 students became candidate masters. Note that predisposed intelligence may impact the validity of results.
