Velammal MHS School, from India, won the FIDE World Schools Team Championship 2025 with a best 8/8 rating. The National School of Physics and Mathematics from Kazakhstan took silver with 6/8, while the Harker School from the U.S. took bronze with 5/8 simply hardly ahead of Astana 2 RSPM, another school from Kazakhstan.
The competition, which was an eight-round group Swiss, occurred on August 3-6 at the Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia– near Washington, D.C. Alongside it ran the Smart Moves Summit on August 4-5, an international conference on the function of chess in education with over 50 speakers consisting of researchers, scientists, instructors, and other specialists.
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Fifty-five groups contended in the schools champion, and the 286 gamers in overall represented 48 nations. FM Mike Klein, who remained in Alexandria and spoke at the conference, stated that numerous groups used uniforms and it felt quite like an Olympiad. In the golden age of Indian chess, it is barely unexpected to see an Indian group take gold. This specific school, Velammal MHS School, is likewise the university of strong GMs Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Leon Mendonca. Their all-titled lineup included:
Throughout the cumulative 36 video games the powerhouse group played, they just lost 2 private video games. It wasn’t even close; 2nd location won 6 matches, while they won all 8.
The fight for 2nd location was more controversial, and no less than 7 groups went into the last round with the possibility to win silver. In the end, it was Kazakhstan and the United States that made it to the podium.
FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich took the phase at the closing event and praised the winners before distributing the awards. He stated,”I wish to begin by congratulating the winners on their terrific outcome! Your success is well-deserved, and I hope you leave here with not just medals however likewise with experiences that will motivate you to accomplish more in life.”
Gamers likewise had an opportunity to go to 2 landmark museums in the location, the National Museum of Natural History and the National Air and Space Museum, after their 
video games.
The Smart Moves Summit was arranged by FIDE and the International School Chess Federation (ISCF), with sponsorship from Freedom Holding. The occasion covered 2 days and included numerous specialists speaking on a variety of panels and you can see the complete list of speakers here.
Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a chess fan and advocate, signed up with by means of video call and kept in mind that the U.S. Chess Center, a considerable and traditionally notable non-profit situated in his district, has actually taught chess to over 40,000 trainees.
There were 3 participants from Chess.com: Klein (Senior Journalist and Head of ChessKid Content & Scholastic Growth), NM Jeremy Kane(Director of Training Content), and Michelle Martinez(Director of Marketing & Coach Liaison).
Klein discussed his experience growing a regional chess organization (instead of ChessKid, his focus now). Klein offered guidance that “if you up and decide you want to be a chess teacher one day, exactly the first thing to do is find how to make it sustainable.” One technique he shared was holding chess classes on instructor work days that were not vacations:
Essentially, moms and dads required something for their kids to do and I got in excellent with the schools that I operated at and they opened their centers, and I had occasions like mini-camps and competitions.
At the time he created it, it was a concept he had not seen carried out anywhere else in the nation.
Kane moderated a panel about innovation and education in chess, while Martinez discussed the confluence of chess and marketing.
Timur Turlov, the CEO of the sponsoring business, discussed the value of keeping a high level of concentration in today’s world. He stated:
Our company believe that the most important thing in our life now is our capability to keep concentration … and I truly think that chess might be a really terrific tool to conquer this difficulty. Since chess is an extremely intriguing video game, it’s a video game that can keep your attention for an extended period of time and is a gorgeous method to train your capability to focus.
The main occasion of the very first day was the”Strategic Leadership in Global Chess Education,” a panel that “talked about long-lasting methods, cross-sector partnership, and how to drive efforts to consist of chess as a part of main federal government policies,” according to FIDE. It was moderated by WGM Dana Reizniece, Deputy Chair of the FIDE Management Board, and consisted of federal government authorities and heads of chess education programs.
Day 2 of the occasion, according to FIDE, concentrated on a large range of subjects “from real human stories on how chess helped change the lives of people around the world, to building financially viable chess initiatives and private-public partnerships, to how social media is redefining the image of chess.” You can check out FIDE’s more comprehensive account of each discussion here 
.
The conference ended with a statement to incorporate chess”into official and casual knowing environments, consisting of public schools, after-school programs, and digital platforms.” The signatories dedicated to broadening chess to all individuals despite citizenship, impairment, or gender– for chess to be inclusive and available to all.
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The 2025 FIDE World Schools Team Championship was a Swiss group competition that occurred on August 3-6 in Washington, D.C. There were 8 rounds each with a 45 +10 time control. The Smart Moves Summit ran together with the occasion and was a worldwide conference on the function of chess in education with over 50 speakers consisting of researchers, scientists, and instructors.
