The oldest board game in the world challenged the grey matter of gifted and talented children from across the North-West at Greenbank Preparatory School.
Greenbank is one of the North-West's centres of excellence for the teaching of Gifted and Talented children and had 30 of the region's brightest young brains come to their school on Heathbank Road in Cheadle Hulme for an introduction to the 3,000-year-old Chinese game of cunning and strategy.
Martin Harvey, the North-West representative for the British Go Association and Britiosh captain elect, came to the top independent preparatory school in Cheadle Hulme to introduce the children to the game that “has seemingly simple rules but takes a life time to master and has many more potential moves than Chess.”
The rules appear breathtakingly simple: Black plays white placing stones on to the chequered board, with the aim to surround an opponent’s stone or in the advanced version of the game areas of space as well.
“The art,” said Martin, “is a balance between defence and attack, working out whether it is better to go for short term gain rather than long term domination.”
Introducing children to Go is just one of the ways Greenbank aims to stimulate the brightest minds. Greenbank’s Gifted and Talented coordinator Philippa Atha said: “The aim is to challenge children by introducing them to a wide range of challenging and novel situations in which they have to think strategically and creatively to be successful, As well as Go we have art, DT and music clubs, debating societies, a chess club and cookery classes, anything that is novel to them and means they have to think differently.”
Greenbank Headmistress Janet Lowe said: “It is a privilege to be chosen by the North West Gifted and Talented Association to run these master classes and a great pleasure for us as teachers to help develop such natural talent.
“Go has tested, teased, challenged and I dare say frustrated many players for thousands of years and these children were immediately enthused and engaged by this new challenge.”
Martin is pictured with two of Greenbank’s bright young chidren Grace Chassagne and Sam Burden