The ChessKid Team Is Coming to Cayman!
The ChessKid team is traveling to Grand Cayman on November 10 to visit schools, play chess with students, and celebrate the chess community Coach Ryan Blackwood has built.
When Coach Ryan Blackwood arrived on Grand Cayman, the island had only two FIDE-rated players and had never hosted a chess tournament. Today, nearly 2,000 Cayman students, parents, and teachers are active ChessKid members. That is roughly 1% of the island's population. Along the way, a young Cayman team trained exclusively on ChessKid and brought home a silver medal from the 2024 Women's Chess Olympiad.
Now the ChessKid team is coming to see it in person. Kulsum Qasim, President of ChessKid, Michelle Martinez, Director of Enterprise Strategy, and WIM Ivette Garcia Morales, Director of ChessKid Español, will join Coach Blackwood, Youth Chess Director for the Cayman Islands Chess Federation, for a full day of school visits on Tuesday, November 10.
Game Plan for the Visit 🏝️
We'll start at Red Bay Primary School (RBPS), where students will get a ChessKid welcome, some hands-on activities, and a few prizes to take home.
Next is Lighthouse School. Teachers there will show us how ChessKid supports students with special educational needs, and how chess has helped with their learning, engagement, and growth. Coach Blackwood has watched chess open doors for students who face real obstacles in the classroom. One high school student he taught struggled so much with reading that he couldn’t follow the written instructions in his ChessKid lessons. Instead of giving up, he made it his mission to learn, all because he wanted to level up.
The afternoon moves to John Gray High School (JGHS), where students get to take on Director of ChessKid Español WIM Ivette Garcia Morales in a simul, where she will be playing many boards at once.
We'll finish at Edna M. Moyle Primary School (EMPS) and East End Primary School (EEPS), meeting students and teachers and talking about how chess can stay part of school life long after we've gone home.
High school students from Lighhouse School use ChessKid. Photo: Ryan Blackwood.
A Small Island with Big Moves ♟️
Coach Blackwood teaches chess in 13 schools across Grand Cayman, and ChessKid is the backbone of how he does it. In class, he projects ChessKid lessons on the board while students follow along on physical boards. Quick bullet tournaments serve as end-of-class rewards, and every game gets analyzed afterward. At home, students keep going with puzzles, games, and tournaments. When he travels with the national team, Live Classroom lets him keep teaching from anywhere. Report cards show parents and teachers how each student is progressing, and certificates mark each new level.
It works, and teachers have noticed. Many ask for their own ChessKid accounts after watching their students light up.
That's why ChessKid is making the trip. A coach can only be in so many classrooms, but ChessKid can be in all of them. Coach Blackwood's goal is for every school on the island, public and private, to have ChessKid, so every student has a way to learn and play. We want to help make that happen and to support chess growing across the Cayman Islands for years to come.
Here’s how ChessKid President Kulsum Qasim sums up the visit:
What Coach Blackwood has built in the Cayman Islands is exactly what we hope to see everywhere: students, teachers, and families all playing chess together. We’re excited to see it in person and to help however we can.”
Want the Full Story? 📖
Read how Coach Blackwood built a chess culture from scratch in our Cayman Islands case study.
➡️Interested in bringing ChessKid to your classroom, school, or district? Fill out our Enterprise Account Request Form and our team will follow up to help you get started.