Welcome to SBU Education

Hugh Kelsey Cup 2022   Fri 25- Thu 31 March.

This is a fun tournament for newcomers to bridge, i.e. people completing 2 years of lessons. Applications to play are through your tutors.

Mini bridge Competition 22   24th March

This year , due to the small number of schools involved the competition will be run as a pairs competition across the 5 home nations.

Bridge Lessons Face to Face 

St Andrew Bridge Club (Glasgow) are offering an Open Evening on Monday 17th January at 6:30 pm. Light refreshments will be served. Click here for more information.

52 Ways to make your child smarter!

Registration for January 2022 now open.

Click here for much more information.

An Invitation From Maureen Rennie

Maureen Rennie would like to invite players who are looking for somewhere to play to her pairs for new players on a Thursday morning. From October onwards there will be an optional post mortem but in the meantime I am happy to discuss any queries on the hands either in the Whatsapp group or via email. The pairs, 12/15 hands, are at 10am on a Thursday morning on Realbridge and a host system is in operation so no partner is required. If anyone is interested please email me or visit my Bridgewebs LearnonlinewithMaureen ​

SBU Summer Academy  has now ended

Players in the Academy are very welcome to join any SBU Club. 

There is also a gentle pairs session being run online on Thursday nights. Contact Tim

Learn to play bridge online

Given Covid-19 restrictions many bridge players have moved to play the game online, and so too with bridge classes which have also moved online.

Several centres are offering lessons for beginners online beginning this Autumn. These include three centres introducing the use of each of the two new SBU badged courses namely

• Dundee Bridge Club using the 20-lesson course.  Albeit over 40 weeks to include more practice and play en route.  Teachers will be using Zoom and Bridge Base Online. Click here for details.
• The Glasgow Bridge Centre is using the 20 lesson course albeit over 40 sessions to be offered in 10 lesson terms. Teachers will be using Bridge Base Online and probably Zoom or Skype. Click here for details.
• The New Melville Academy using the 60-lesson course. Teachers will be using Zoom and Bridge Base Online. Click here for details.
• Also Grace White is an accredited English Bridge Teachers Association teacher, running relaxed and interactive lessons for all levels using the English Bridge Education and Development course Bridge for All. Classes run throughout the main part of the year in 8 week blocks; a beginners class online starting in October. Please contact Grace  for further details and guidance or Click here for details.

• Hamilton Bridge Club
  Lessons for Beginners using Skype and the Bridge Base Online Teaching Table 40 lessons, mixture of SBU, EBU and own resources. Lessons start 16th September and every Wednesday morning thereafter. Start 9.45 am
  Contact Joan Lees for further information.
  07929 585538
  01698 383231
  Also
  Play and Learn for Improvers using Skype and the Bridge Base Online Teaching Table
  Mondays starting at 9.45 am.

• Inverness and Blackisle U3A offer classes at all levels on Friday mornings starting 1st Oct 21 via zoom and RealBridge or possibly Shark. We are using the SBU recommended Perth 20 lesson course.  Contact Ann Wickens for further details

• Ness Bridge Club Inverness are offering face to face lessons starting 5th Oct 21. Contact Ian Slinn

The District Class will continue at lesson 11 starting  at 10.00 Mon 6th Oct 21 on Monday mornings. Contact Fiona

Other lessons are hoping to start in Fort William and Stornoway.

If you wish to learn and times do not suit you please contact Ann Wickens

• ​Anne Brodie-Allan

​Anne has been teaching online for 10 years and teaches either Standard American Yellow Card or Two-over-One Game Forcing.

She taught Acol with the SBU teaching Lessons over a 3 year period for 15 years in Aberdeen.

 She does not charge for lessons but if any SBU members want to learn more about sayc and 2/1 She is happy to teach them.

She  teaches on Tuesdays and Fridays at noon for those interested. Contact Anne at brodieallan@btinternet.com

• Ayrshire – Maureen Rennie

Maureen is a member of EBTA (English Bridge Teachers Association and is accredited to teach the ACOL system use the Bridge for All teaching material. She has been teaching since 2009 (MiniBridge, Junior and Adult since 2009) and since 2017  has taught the Bridge for All course with good success, many playing after just one year of classes and almost all by the end of 2nd year. Maureen runs online classes using Zoom, Bridgebase online and the exciting new RealBridge platform.

She currently has three sessions running per week

Tuesday morning – 2nd year Beginners

Wednesday evening - 1st year Beginners

Thursday morning – a pairs session followed by an optional Post Mortem.

There are spaces available in all the sessions, learners and players from everywhere are very welcome to join us.

For more information please contact Maureen  or visit www.bridgewebs.com/learnonlinewithmaureen  for more information.

Full Description of the SBU Courses

To see the 20-lesson course outline, click here. For the syllabus, click here. If you wish access to the 20-lesson course material please contact George.

To see the 60-lesson course outline click here. For the syllabus, click here. If you wish access to the 60-lesson course material please contact Nigel 

NEW 20 Lesson Course

Schools Bridge Education

New Education Committee Chairman   MarinaEvans

Marina Evans, has taken over the position of chairing the education committee. This is an important role and we wish her well. Marina takes over from Sam Punch. We would like to thank Sam for all her hard work in the last year. 

Since taking over Marina has been representing us on a 5 nations committee to share education material for schools and working with both Sue Johnson of NewTricks and Shireen Mohandes of Real Bridge to improve resources available to us. 

Our goal is to get more people playing this great game. If you feel you could spare a few hours a week helping us to achieve this goal and can relate to JUST ONE of the following, then Marina would love to hear from you. 

- You don’t have to be a good Bridge player or a teacher to mentor beginner/intermediate students. You don’t have to run a class, you could support a tutor. 

- If you are with kids the most important qualities are time and patience.  

- Do you have technical skills?

- Do you have a contact in a school that might be interested in starting a Bridge club, or know people that might like to learn?

If the answer to any of these is yes, don’t delay click on the link below and get in touchwith Marina

  Teaching in Schools

Some useful links for those involved with teaching bridge in schools:

https://www.newtricksschools.org/resources

Why should your school teach bridge? https://www.newtricksschools.org/resources/why-bridge-schools

Dr Christopher Shaw research: https://www.newtricksschools.org/resources/statistically-speaking

Benefits of Minibridge: A study: https://www.newtricksschools.org/resources/mini-bridge-study

Which model works for your school? https://www.newtricksschools.org/resources/teaching-methods

About Minibridge: https://www.newtricksschools.org/resources/minibridge

In the Media: https://www.newtricksschools.org/resources/in-the-media

A Message from the President, Joan Forsyth

Click here to view a short video clip by Joan. Bridge, a mindsport for all.

Professor Sam Punch publishes a Research Paper.

Sam published a Research Paper "(Per)forming identity in the mind-sport bridge: Self, partnership and community". It is perfect reading! Nineteen pages long and can be surmised that bridge is a jolly good game, it helps keep the mind active and should be classed as a mind-sport and included in the Olympics. Her summary is more academic. Full text can be viewed by clicking here.

New! Free bridge lessons for Students

Yes, Free bridge lessons for students! Click here to learn more

Currntly some private schools are allowing tuors into schools and we have some schools with pupils learning bridge online.

We were teaching minibridge in some primary schools and bridge in secondary schools. We aim to expand this service.

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These classes are run in curriculum time or at lunch time 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 alo 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, your District Education Officer. 

As young people progress their skills our Youth Coordinators Alisdair McLeod gets involved organising extra training courses to train our next generation of youth internationalists.