My son attends chess classes at Studygascar about one year already. He went through most of class grades over there (beginners, lower intermediate, intermediate, upper intermediate) and enjoyed each grade.
When my son began to study chess at 6 years old, he had another chess coach, but after half year chess study, my son told us, even he likes to play chess, but he doesn't want to study chess anymore for two reasons, One is chess study is boring to him and we (parents) cannot always follow his coach's guide to practice with him. My wife and I both don't know chess, sometimes, it is even hard for us to understand what his chess coach really asked us to do. So we stopped his chess study.
Few month later, occasionally, some one told us, there is a chess school (studygascar) near by, they teach chess but doesn't need parents involve technically. We let our son tried 2 lessons (have to pay) over there. He immediately loved those lessons and since then, he never leave studygascar.
Studygascar evaluates kids with their chess level and divide them into different grade/class. In general, the kid has to earn next grade by their chess level not by the time they study in the class. By this method, similar level kids can always play together and speed up their chess skill development. After about 11 months study in studygascar, my son chess skill has big improvement and also got good chess score from USCF (US Chess Federation) by his age.
Studygascar operated by a nice couple, the husband, Mikhail Baturyn is the only chess coach, He is a Chess International Master. ( http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?14437365 ). All chess classes in studygascar are 1.5 hour, not 45, 50, 60 minutes like other chess after school. They have homework from each class and students must hand in their homework paper before class start. Studygascar chess class only focus on help kids to improve their chess skill, they don't organize tournaments like other chess school. Sometimes, they don't even encourage you to goto USCF tournament before your kids reach certain level. If kids want to check their own chess level, parents have to arrange USCF tournaments by themselves.
My advise to parents who are looking for right chess coach for their kids are,
If your kid instinctively love to play chess and willing to spend time on it, studygascar maybe a right choice for you.
if your kids only want to know how to play chess or not play chess well, maybe it is not a good choice for them. Because, most of students in this school really love chess and their internal competition in each level are high (compare with other school), if your kid is not really good at chess, sometimes, they will feel frustration.
If some parents want to show off tournament result from their kids, maybe this is also not a right school for you to choose. Because this school never spend time to teach parents how to prepare those shows. read more