SCOTTISH BRIDGE UNION
We are teaching minibridge in some primary schools and bridge in secondary schools. We aim to expand this service.
These classes are run in curriculum time or at lunchtime or after school clubs. A number of bridge clubs hope to run courses for young learners. Some clubs and bridge centres were running very successful clubs for young learners and also some successful summer schools. If you wish to get involved in this program either as a school or as a tutor, or as a club, contact your District Education Officer.
As young people progress their skills, our Youth Coordinator, Alisdair McLeod, gets involved organising extra training courses to train our next generation of Junior Internationalists.
Secondary Schools Course Information
We hope to expand bridge education in secondary schools. To this end, we are putting together a 3-stage course with options of a stage 4 later.
At the end of each stage, students will be awarded a certificate to demonstrate successful completion of the course. This is in recognition of the needs of students to show evidence of achievement outside academic fields.
Each course will require at least 8 hours of tuition and will be suitable for teaching in curriculum time under social skills, life skills, strategy skills, etc. or suitable for lunchtime or after school clubs or Duke of Edinburgh skills training.
Primary Schools Course Information
Minibridge is a simplified form of bridge. Starting from dealer, players declare the number of points in their hand A -4, K-3, Q-2, J-1. The pair with the greater number of points play the hand, the individual with most points in the partnership is declarer, partner is dummy. Dummy puts his hand down, declarer decides whether he /she isplaying in game or part score and whether it is a suit contract or No Trump (NT). If a suit, dummy puts suit on left hand side. Player to left of declarer leads for first trick. Scoring is as for bridge except all scores are non vulnerable.
This course is aimed at primary 6/7 children and has successfully been taught in classes in curricullum time. We have been offering 8-week courses in some schools, longer in others. However you could use it to help your grandchildren to learn to play mini bridge. We also need more people to volunteer as tutors for 8 weeks per year.
The attached documents below contain research which demonstrates the positive and lasting effects that learning minibridge can have on children: