Trial lesson
$12once
- A full lesson in a real group
- Coach writes you two lines about your child afterwards
- Parents may stay in the room
- No rules knowledge needed
Groups & prices
Start with one lesson, stay for the season
Every price below is what you pay at the desk. No joining fee, no equipment to buy: boards, clocks and notation books belong to the club.
Groups cap at six children. When a group fills, we open the next one rather than squeeze a seventh chair in.
Month in a group
$95per month
- Two evenings a week, same coach all month
- Up to six children in the room
- One make-up lesson per month
- Club badge test at the end of each term
One to one
$40per lesson
- Openings and endings built around one player
- Game review from the child's own notation
- Block of five: $185
- Also runs online
Tournament pass
$150per season
- Six club events with real clocks
- Squad training on Saturdays
- Notation book and club rating card
- Open to group members from level II
Schedule
Four groups, sorted by age not by level
A seven-year-old and an eleven-year-old need different rooms, not different chairs. Within a group the coach splits the board work by strength.
Term runs September to May. Summer club runs two mornings a week in July.
Group
When
What they work on
Places
Owletsages 5–7
Mon & Thu
16:00–17:00
16:00–17:00
Piece moves through games and puzzles, first checkmates,
sitting still for a whole game.
2 places
Rooksages 8–10
Tue & Fri
17:00–18:30
17:00–18:30
Tactics in two moves, opening principles, writing down
a game and reading it back.
3 places
Knightsages 11–13
Wed & Sat
18:00–19:30
18:00–19:30
Endgame technique, a small opening repertoire, playing
to a clock without panic.
Waiting list
Squadby invitation
Sat
11:00–14:00
11:00–14:00
Preparation for club events, analysis of last month's
games, one long game per session.
Coach's call
First ten minutes
The warm-up before the board
Every lesson opens away from the chessboard. A cube, a folding puzzle, a matchstick problem — anything where the child has to hold three steps in their head before the hands move. It is the same muscle that later stops a rook walking into a pawn fork.
- 1Turn a layer and watch what it costs somewhere else on the cube.
- 2Say the plan out loud before touching it — that is the rule at the table too.
- 3Scramble, then count the moves back. The number on the wall is the club record.
3
4
Roll the dice and walk the ring.
Amber squares hold a chess task.
Owlets, ages 5–7
The ring board for the youngest group
Five-year-olds do not sit through a whole game on day one. They walk a token around a ring of forty squares, and every amber square hands them one small chess question: which piece jumps, where can the king not go, how does a pawn take.
By the third month the ring is gone and the board is a board. Nobody remembers the moment it changed, which is exactly the point.
- 1Two dice, one token per player, one square at a time.
- 2Amber square: answer out loud, the coach confirms.
- 3A full lap earns one sticker on the group chart.
Inside the room
Ninety minutes, four clear parts
The shape never changes, which is why children settle into it quickly. Parents are welcome to sit at the back of the room for any lesson, not only the trial one.
Phones stay in the basket by the door — coaches included.
Warm-up
10 minutes
A puzzle away from the board. Cube, matchsticks, a position with one answer. Nobody is allowed to touch a piece until they can say the plan.
One idea
20 minutes
The coach shows a single theme on the big board — a pin, a back-rank mate, a pawn race. One idea per lesson, never two.
Play and write
45 minutes
Games with clocks. From the Rooks group up, every child writes their own moves down — it slows the hand and speeds the head.
Review
15 minutes
Two games go up on the board and the room finds the turning point together. The child who lost explains first.
Coaches
Six coaches, all of them teachers first
Playing strength matters less than the ability to explain a loss to a nine-year-old without flattening them. Every coach holds our own club certification and is rated on our internal ladder.
Club ratings are our own numbers, measured in club events only.
MO
Martin Ovelle
Head coach · 11 years
Founded the club in 2014 after ten years teaching maths. Runs the Knights group and the tournament squad.
Club rating 2145Coach level III
ID
Iris Daun
Owlets & Rooks · 7 years
Built the ring board the youngest group plays on. Trained as an early years teacher, which shows in the first ten minutes of any lesson.
Club rating 1980Coach level II
TR
Tomas Reff
Squad & one to one · 5 years
Handles preparation for club events and every game review that runs long. Keeps the club's record of openings the children actually play.
Club rating 2060Coach level III
Results
What a season actually changes
Numbers from our own club events and our own register, for the season that ended in May. We do not count anything we cannot check ourselves.
Badge levels I to V are internal to the club and mean nothing outside it — we say so to every parent.
128club badges awarded across five levels
42children in the tournament squad
9 / 10finish the season they started
+1.6badge levels gained in a first year, on average
Six club events a season, all played in our own room on Rookery Lane. Children who want outside tournaments are helped to enter them, but we never enter anyone automatically.
Parents
What families say after a term
4.9 average from 128 written reviews collected at the end of each term.
★★★★★
“He came for the chess and stayed for the fifteen minutes at the end where everyone argues about the game. He now loses without slamming the door, which I did not expect from a chess club.”
HRHannah R.
mother of Elias, Rooks group
★★★★★
“We tried an online course first and it lasted three weeks. Here she has a coach who knows her name and five children who notice when she is not there.”
PMPeter M.
father of Nora, Owlets group
★★★★★
“What sold me was the trial lesson note. Two honest lines about what my son does well and what he avoids. No sales talk, just the actual thing I wanted to know.”
LKLena K.
mother of Adam, Knights group
Visit
Rookery Lane, the blue door by the library
One room, eight boards, a kettle and a shelf of puzzles. Come ten minutes early if it is your first evening.
- Address
- 18 Rookery Lane
Thornbury Green Ground floor, entrance from the courtyard. Step-free. - Club hours
- Mon – Fri 15:00–20:00
Saturday 10:00–16:00Sunday closed. Office answers from 10:00 on weekdays. - Phone
- +1 555 0148 Iris answers between lessons, so leave a message if it rings out.
- hello@knightandowl.club Trial bookings are confirmed the same working day.
- Getting here
- Bus 14 and 27 stop at Thornbury Library, one minute away. Parking on Rookery Lane is free after 15:00.
ROOKERY LANE
MARKET ROW
THORNBURY GREEN
KNIGHT & OWL · no. 18
Sketch map · not to scale
Booking
Book a trial lesson
Tell us the age and we will put your child in the right room. One trial lesson per child, $12, paid at the desk on the evening.
Before you send
- •Beginners are welcome — most children arrive not knowing how a knight moves.
- •Bring nothing. Boards, clocks and notation books are ours.
- •We reply the same working day with two or three times that have a free chair.
- •If the group your child fits is full, we say so instead of offering another one.
Questions
Before the first evening
No. Roughly two thirds of the children who walk in for a trial lesson cannot name all six pieces. The Owlets and Rooks groups both start from the board itself, and the coach will pair a complete beginner with someone patient for the first fortnight.
One make-up lesson per month is included: your child joins the other evening of the same group, or an age-appropriate group if that suits better. Tell us before the lesson if you can, so the coach keeps a board free.
Forty-five minutes, inside a real group rather than a separate taster session. Parents can sit at the back of the room for the whole lesson — most do on the first evening and stop by the third. Afterwards the coach writes you two lines about what they saw.
We run six club events a season in our own room, with clocks and a results table on the wall. They are open to group members from badge level II. Outside tournaments are a family decision: we help with the entry and the preparation, but we never enter a child automatically.