Ficheall - Feile Fichille Chess 2025/2026
Ficheall 2025/2026 - Primary Teachers Promoting Chess
Ficheall is the network of primary teachers and principals who promote chess in their schools for the social and cognitive benefits it has for primary school students.
Ficheall teachers use chess as a tool to teach through and an opportunity for their students to develop new skills and values, as well as representing their school at Ficheall tournaments called Féile Fichille (chess festival).
The Ficheall.ie website contains many excellent resources created by fellow primary school teachers such as:
- Benefits of Chess - Social and Cognitive benefits aswell as resources to help develop mental resilience and details of relevant academic studies
- A series of 10 beginner chess lessons (with optional integration to the SPHE curriculum) which include instructional videos, games, slides and more.
- List of CPD chess courses for teachers (summer, evening and online courses)
- Ficheall newsletters with chess updates
County Donegal Education Support Centre have hosted the Chess for Social Skills summer course previously with great success. Upon completion of this course teachers can play chess (most attend the course having never played chess before) and can teach the basics of chess to students in their class while also teaching key SPHE curriculum objectives from 1st to 6th class (all of this without worksheets).
Féile Fichille Chess Tournaments
Féile Fichille tournaments are non-competitive chess tournaments organised annually in Term 2. No medals, prizes or trophies are presented. Instead, the day is a celebration of the students learning chess and social skills as well as their teachers’ leadership skills to introduce the initiative in their school. For many students it is their first opportunity to wear their school jersey and represent their school.
How to Register?
Registration information is detailed on the Ficheall website here.
You can also go direct to the online registration form here.
Registration Deadline: The deadline for regitsration is Friday 17th October 2025
Féile Fichille Timeline
- Sep 2025: Registrations Open
- Oct 2025: Registrations Close on 17th October 2025
- Nov 2025: Schools informed of tournament date and venue
- Jan 2026 / Feb 2026 / Mar 2026: Féile Fichille tournament will be scheduled in term 2. Registered schools will be allocated one Féile Fichille tournament to attend. Schools are required to be at the venue at 9.30am with the event concluded by 2pm.
- Join the Mailing List - you can join the Ficheall mailing list here to receive the Ficheall newsletter every two months
- Resources as Gaeilge - Conas Ficheall a Imirt? Youtube playlist of videos as gaeilge designed by Ficheall volunteer teachers
- Summer Courses - Ficheall organise summer courses for teachers to learn how to play chess and use the Ficheall resources called Chess for Social Skills. Keep an eye on the Ficheal CPD page for updates.
- Youtube Channel - with 9 playlists featuring 82 videos created by volunteer Ficheall teachers, you'll be sure to find something helpful here @Ficheallie
- Teacher Chess Club - Join an online Teacher chess club which is available weekly. For more information and how to sign up click here.
- Chess & Numeracy - Get set for Maths Week with some chess-based numeracy activities available here.
- How to Contact Ficheall - send your queries to Ficheall here
