dissertation on forest school

The importance of Forest School and the pathways to nature connection

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• Published: 18 February 2021
• Volume 24 , pages 71–85, ( 2021 )

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• Dave Cudworth   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4952-4676 1 &
• Ryan Lumber 2  

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Over the past 25 years Forest School in the UK has been growing in popularity as part of a wider resurgence of interest in outdoor learning. A key driver behind this recurrence of interest has been a growing concern over the lack of child exposure to outdoor experiences and with the natural world and their ensuing nature-deficit disorder. This article considers Forest School as linked with the concept of nature connection that is the sensation of belonging to a wider natural community. This sense of belonging developed by being in nature can also be a key factor in promoting attachment and sense of place which in turn is associated with the promotion of health, wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviours. As such the origins towards achieving nature connection are a formal part of the Forest School Association’s (FSA  2016 ). Forest School principals, with growing research linking Forest School and nature connection as concomitant. Recent work has suggested that contact, emotion, meaning, compassion, and beauty are key pathways for the formation of nature connection and there is a strong need to better understand children’s nature connection in this context. Further, from the premise that what goes on in spaces and places is fundamentally linked to both social and spatial processes, this article also attempts to understand the spatialities of Forest School in order to frame the development of nature connection within a socio-spatial analytic.

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Cudworth, D., Lumber, R. The importance of Forest School and the pathways to nature connection. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education 24 , 71–85 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42322-021-00074-x

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Accepted : 15 January 2021

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s42322-021-00074-x

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Inside out: a case study on the impact of forest school learning for pupils in a secondary school specialist send class.

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Johnson, Emma (2023). Inside out: a case study on the impact of Forest School learning for pupils in a Secondary school specialist SEND class. Student dissertation for The Open University module E822 Masters multi-disciplinary dissertation: education, childhood and youth.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.000175b3

Forest School research involving adolescents is notable by its near total absence from the field. Research involving SEND learners in their own right is also limited and there is an apparent lack of conceptual framework or theory underpinning current research. This proposal aims to fill these gaps by using Vygotsky’s Zones of Proximal Development (ZPD) to understand to what extent Forest School can be developed to aid engagement for Secondary aged SEND learners struggling to access traditional forms of learning and, if Forest School activities can be as beneficial for adolescent learners as they appear to be for younger children.

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The Forest School initiative and its perceived impact on children’s learning and development: an investigation into the views of children and parents

The study investigated the perceptions of children and parents relating to the Forest School initiative. The aims of the research were to explore children’s and parents’ perceptions of Forest School and consider the potential influence Forest School can have on children’s learning and development. The study explored these views within a setting that had implemented the Forest School initiative at a whole primary school level for a number of years. A qualitative approach was taken and the study used thematic analysis of key concepts and codes. Emerging themes were drawn from children’s and parents’ comments and main themes were identified. The study found that children were able to communicate the fun, excitement and enjoyment they had experienced when talking about Forest School as an initiative. Children conveyed a caring attitude and respect for nature and the outdoor environment and that it was important for them to look after their surroundings. Parents expressed that they valued the initiative and that supporting their children’s education at home was important. However, they felt that children took the Forest School initiative for granted and perhaps saw it as a privilege. In relation to children’s learning, a key theme was children’s apparent enthusiasm and desire to learn. The Forest School experience enabled children to develop and reinforce a multitude of key skills. With regard to children’s development, references were made to a growing sense of awareness and maturity. Concepts of trust and responsibility were conveyed with some reference to a growing sense of freedom being afforded to children as they get older. Further research could seek to establish which professionals are aware of the existence of Forest School and gain their perceptions of its potential benefits. Also, further exploration focusing on the difference in Forest School experiences between the Foundation Phase and Key Stage 2 could provide interesting results. This takes into account the perceived impact the Forest School initiative appears to have contributed to, in relation to the children’s and parents’ perspectives and the context of this study.

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Specific features of the ecological functioning of urban soils in Moscow and Moscow region

Eurasian Soil Science

Urban soils (constructozems) were studied in Moscow and several cities (Dubna, Pushchino, and Serebryanye Prudy) of Moscow oblast. The soil sampling from the upper 10-cm-thick layer was performed in the industrial, residential, and recreational functional zones of these cities. The biological (the carbon of the microbial biomass carbon, Cmic and the microbial (basal) respiration, BR) and chemical (pHwater and the contents of Corg, heavy metals, and NPK) indices were determined in the samples. The ratios of BR to Cmic (the microbial respiration quotient, qCO2) and of Cmic to Corg were calculated. The Cmic varied from 120 to 738 μg C/g soil; the BR, from 0.39 to 1.94 μg CO2-C/g soil per hour; the Corg, from 2.52 to 5.67%; the qCO2, from 1.24 to 5.28 μg CO2-C/mg Cmic/g soil per h; and the Cmic/Corg, from 0.40 to 1.55%. Reliable positive correlations were found between the Cmic and BR, the Cmic and Cmic/Corg, and the Cmic and Corg values (r = 0.75, 0.95, and 0.61, respectively), as well...

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Soils and plants of Saint Petersburg are under the constant technogenic stress caused by human activity in in-dustrial, residential, and recreational landscapes of the city. To assess the transformed landscapes of various functional zones, we studied utility, housing, and park districts with a total area of over 7,000 hectares in the southern part of the city during the summer seasons of 2016-2018. Throughout the fieldwork period, 796 individual pairs of soil and plant samples were collected. A complex of consequent laboratory studies performed in an accredited laboratory allowed the characterization of key biogeochemical patterns of urban regolith specimens and herbage samples of various grasses. Chemical analyses provided information on the concentrations of polluting metals in soils and plants of different land use zones. Data interpretation and calculation of element accumulation factors revealed areas with the most unfavorable environmental conditions. We believe that a high pollution level in southern city districts has led to a significant degree of physical, chemical, and biological degradation of the soil and vegetation cover. As of today, approximately 10 % of the Technosols in the study area have completely lost the ability to biological self-revitalization, which results in ecosystem malfunction and the urgent need for land remediation.

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The main purpose of the present study was to monitor actual contamination levels and execute a comparative assessment of results in a mid-sized Hungarian city for two different years. The first citywide soil investigations were completed in 2011. In 2018, the most prominent properties (pH, CaCO3, texture, and trace metals Cd, Co, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn) were reanalyzed and were supplemented with mesofauna on selected sites. The available trace metal elements of urban soils showed the following tendency in 2011: Zn > Cu > Pb > Cd > Cr = Ni = Co. In 2018, the previous order changed to Zn > Pb > Cu > Cr > Cd = Ni = Co. Cd and Pb enrichments were found, especially near the M7 motorway. The comparison between 2011 and 2018 revealed soil contamination was, on average, higher in 2011. Soil microarthropod communities were sampled and assessed using abundance data and diversity measurements. Soil biological quality was evaluated with the help of the Soil Biological Qualit...

Mikhail Reshetnikov , Ngun Clement

A soil diagnosis of an urban territory Stepnoe (Saratov region) was conducted within the framework of soil research monitoring of inhabited localities with low levels of anthropogenic impact using chemical and microbiological analysis. Excess over maximum permissible concentration (MPC) of mobile forms of Cr, Zn and Cd were not observed within the researched territory. A universal excess over MPC of mobile forms of Ni, Cu and Pb was established which is most likely connected with anthropogenic contamination. It was discovered that, at the territory of the Stepnoe settlement, mobile forms of heavy metals compounds (HM) in most cases formed paragenetic associations with high correlation coefficient and despite this, an excess over MPC was not significant. This point to a common mineralogical origin of the elements inherited from the parent rock. The values of the total index of chemical contamination were not above 16, which puts the researched samples in a category with permissible contamination. The indices of the total number of heterotrophic bacteria, iron-oxidizing and hydrocarbon-oxidizing bacteria in most samples corresponded to normal indices for chestnut solonetsous and saline soils. In some samples, a deviation from the normal indices was observed justifying the impact of specific contaminants on the soil.

Soil Science Annual

Lidia Oktaba

The objective of the study was to determine properties of soils located within a city, and to assess the effect of anthropopressure on the accumulation of carbon and nitrogen in soils of Pruszków . a medium sized town in central Poland. Surface soil layers (0.20 cm) were collected at 36 sites. A total of 12 samples from lawns, 11 from allotment gardens, 9 from fields and 4 from fallow lands were subject to analysis. Lawns and allotment gardens were treated as central zone I . under strong pressure of anthropogenic factors, fields and fallow lands were treated as zone II . with potentially low level of anthropogenic influence. The statistical analysis showed significantly higher (p=0.008) amount of organic carbon (Corg) in lawns (mean 20.5 g·kg

For the first time, the quantitative geochemical data are given for urban soils of several groups of cities which differ in population. The content of chemical elements is considered as well as the specific ecological significance of soil contamination by these elements. The figures were established by authors on the base of average concentrations of chemical elements in the soils of more than 300 cities and settlements. The major part of data (sampling, analyses, and their statistical treatment) was obtained directly by authors as a result of special studies conducted for more than 15 years. The sufficiently numerous published materials of different researchers were also used. The greatest elements accumulation comparing with the Earth’s soils (tens of thousands of tons per 1 km2) is associated with an increase in the content of Ca and Mg. Considering the environmental significance of chemical elements accumulation in soils, we note the primary role of Pb and Zn in all groups of cities. Out from the rest pollutants it is necessary, first of all, to note As, Cu, and Cl, which are the main contaminants in four of six cities groups. In two groups of settlements, Cd and Co are important soil pollutants. In three groups, a considerable increase in the Ca content significantly modifies ecological–geochemical state of soils.

Richard Pouyat

Journal of Central European Agriculture

Marcos Francos

Soil Science

Heikki Setälä

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Three Umass Amherst Doctoral Students Earn 2024 Mellon/Acls Dissertation Innovation Fellowships

Three UMass Amherst doctoral students have been awarded  2024 Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Dissertation Innovation Fellowships , which support doctoral students in the humanities and interpretive social sciences as they pursue bold and innovative approaches to dissertation research

Jose Mari Lanuza in the Department of Communication,  Mabrouka M'Barek in the Department of Sociology and  Marcus P. Smith in the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies are among 45 awardees selected nationally from a pool of more than 700 applicants. Each honoree receives an award of up to $50,000 to support external mentorship that offers new perspectives on the fellow’s project and expands their advising network. With fellows pursuing their research across the country and beyond, ACLS will also provide opportunities for virtual networking and scholarly programming throughout the award terms.

Lanuza’s research explores electoral disinformation in the Philippines by considering social factors, which have often been neglected in prior research. It examines the information-seeking and meaning-making behaviors and processes of people who engage with conspiracy theories about Philippine elections and view contemporary electoral contexts as deeply intertwined with conspiracy theories. This approach illuminates disinformation vulnerability and consumption at the community level as products of micro-level social interactions and macro-level political communication. Lanuza is also a graduate fellow in the newly launched Global Technology for Social Justice Lab and co-author of a study comparing  Brazil and Philippines elections .

M'Barek’s dissertation is a comparative historical sociological project that seeks to analyze how colonization affected North African and North American semi-nomadic communities in the long term, and how these communities are re-engaging in land-based relations while celebrating their nomadic past. Drawing on indigenous methods, her research contributes to the field of sociology by conceptualizing mobility as a web of social relationships and connections with land and natural environment — deepening the understanding of the articulation between colonialism and capital accumulation.

The research pursued by Smith employs an interdisciplinary methodology, drawing from history, ethnography and landscape studies to examine the development of grassroots museums in historically Black rural, agro-urban and coastal communities as sites of community empowerment and resistance. His project investigates and recounts the narratives of museum inception, community mobilization, resource acquisition, curatorial decision-making and establishing the museums as viable and sustainable institutions in different social, political and economic contexts.

The ACLS launched the fellowship program in 2023 with the support of the  Mellon Foundation to advance a vision for doctoral education that prioritizes openness to new methods and sources, underrepresented voices and perspectives and scholarly experimentation. The awards are designed to accelerate change in the norms of humanistic scholarship by recognizing those who take risks in the modes, methods and subjects of their research.

More information about these other fellowship programs offered by the ACLS can be found at https://www.acls.org/fellowship-grant-programs .

The Unique Burial of a Child of Early Scythian Time at the Cemetery of Saryg-Bulun (Tuva)

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Pages:  379-406

In 1988, the Tuvan Archaeological Expedition (led by M. E. Kilunovskaya and V. A. Semenov) discovered a unique burial of the early Iron Age at Saryg-Bulun in Central Tuva. There are two burial mounds of the Aldy-Bel culture dated by 7th century BC. Within the barrows, which adjoined one another, forming a figure-of-eight, there were discovered 7 burials, from which a representative collection of artifacts was recovered. Burial 5 was the most unique, it was found in a coffin made of a larch trunk, with a tightly closed lid. Due to the preservative properties of larch and lack of air access, the coffin contained a well-preserved mummy of a child with an accompanying set of grave goods. The interred individual retained the skin on his face and had a leather headdress painted with red pigment and a coat, sewn from jerboa fur. The coat was belted with a leather belt with bronze ornaments and buckles. Besides that, a leather quiver with arrows with the shafts decorated with painted ornaments, fully preserved battle pick and a bow were buried in the coffin. Unexpectedly, the full-genomic analysis, showed that the individual was female. This fact opens a new aspect in the study of the social history of the Scythian society and perhaps brings us back to the myth of the Amazons, discussed by Herodotus. Of course, this discovery is unique in its preservation for the Scythian culture of Tuva and requires careful study and conservation.

Keywords: Tuva, Early Iron Age, early Scythian period, Aldy-Bel culture, barrow, burial in the coffin, mummy, full genome sequencing, aDNA

Information about authors: Marina Kilunovskaya (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Vladimir Semenov (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail: [email protected] Varvara Busova  (Moscow, Russian Federation).  (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Kharis Mustafin  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Technical Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Irina Alborova  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Candidate of Biological Sciences. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected] Alina Matzvai  (Moscow, Russian Federation). Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Institutsky Lane, 9, Dolgoprudny, 141701, Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation E-mail:  [email protected]

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• Investigates
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WEATHER ALERT

3 warnings in effect for 8 counties in the area

Klein isd student accused of orchestrating cyber attack that disrupted staar testing.

Christian Terry , Digital Content Producer

Bryce Newberry , Reporter

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – A 18-year-old student at Klein Forest High School is currently wanted by police after they say he was responsible for cyber attacks that disrupted STAAR testing for thousands of students in the district.

Keontra Lamont Kenemore is accused of electronic access interference, which is a third degree felony. A warrant for his arrest was filed Thursday and records show he hasn’t been taken into custody.

Kenemore allegedly used his school-issued Chromebook to access sites that initiated Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, causing major internet disruptions during State Mandated Testing (STAAR) in the district back in April.

• What those beach warning flags mean along Galveston, Texas coast

On April 16, the Klein Forest High School testing coordinator started having internet service issues during the STAAR testing, according to court records.

The IT department investigated and found the district was experiencing a DDoS attack.

“This is like pulling the fire alarm in all schools in the Klein ISD school district at the same time and continuously for a number of hours,” said Nigel Neilsen, who owns local IT company Nickel Idealtek Inc.

The internet disruptions affected all campuses district-wide and about 3,000 students on their STAAR tests on April 16, which was the first day of the English Language Arts (ELA1/Reading) test. Students were locked out and had to stop and restart their writing essays and multiple choice test answer due to the online attack, records show.

“This is a really easy attack to perform. It probably only cost him about $20,” Neilsen said. “Literally, you can do it in about five minutes.”

The next day, April 17, 700 students were locked out of testing across the district and had to completely retake their STAAR tests due to the online disruption, according to records.

• Have you noticed the haze in Houston? We have too. Here’s what’s causing it

On the third day of testing, April 18, Klein ISD IT received service interruptions at Klein Forest High School, which affected the district online testing.

In total, 6,981 students tested on April 16, with an additional 17,298 students testing on April 17. The number of students impacted by the disruptions to the district’s internet service across both days was 24,279, according to the documents.

When questioned by school administrators, Kenemore allegedly said he knew why they were having the meeting, before admitting to accessing the websites used to send the DDoS attacks on multiple occasions.

Neilsen compared the attack to a flash mob filling a restaurant, with no intention of dining or buying, leaving those who want to eat there unable to because it’s full.

“(Users) would have had timeout notices on the web browser. It would have been a 404 error saying, ‘Oh, sorry, something has gone wrong’,” he said.

After utilizing a link creator site that can collect the IP addresses of anyone who clicks on it, Kenemore allegedly used that information on a network stress tester site that appears to be hosted in Sweden, records show. The site didn’t have any safeguards of legitimate tools and is likely only used in a malicious environment, Neilsen said.

“This would have been a deliberate action because he utilized two different tools in order to identify the public IP address of the school district and then he would have had to manually copy and paste that into the attacking website," he said.

At Kenemore’s current address, no one came to the door on Monday evening, but a family member told KPRC 2′s Bryce Newberry over the phone he claimed it was an accident, that he was expelled and unable to graduate.

Investigators claim it was intentional in court records.

Klein ISD’s Accountability Rating from the Texas Education Agency could be impacted, records show. The TEA was closed Monday for a holiday and has not responded to KPRC 2′s request for comment.

• Two 16-year-olds among suspects arrested with nearly 100 rounds of ammunition, handguns leaving Deerbrook Mall

Klein ISD acknowledged KPRC 2′s request for comment on Monday evening, but the district was closed for the holiday and a spokesperson said a response may not come until Tuesday.

Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston - All rights reserved.

About the Authors

Christian terry.

Christian Terry covered digital news in Tyler and Wichita Falls before returning to the Houston area where he grew up. He is passionate about weather and the outdoors and often spends his days off on the water fishing.

Bryce Newberry

Bryce Newberry joined KPRC 2 in July 2022. He loves the thrill of breaking news and digging deep on a story that gets people talking.

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Mudslide death: Coach of girl, 10, who dreamt of being a Lioness says team 'devastated' by death

The young girl killed in the mudslide in North Yorkshire has been named as "happy, bubbly" schoolgirl Leah Harrison. She was on a forest walk during a school trip at the time.

Thursday 23 May 2024 21:00, UK

The football coach of a 10-year-old whose dream it was to become a Lioness has said the team is "devastated" by news of her being killed in a mudslide.

Leah Harrison died during a school field trip to Carlton Bank forest on the edge of the North York Moors, North Yorkshire.

A major operation involving 30 mountain rescuers was launched to save her, as heavy rain fell in the area, but she could not be saved.

Described as a "go-lucky little girl", Leah was said to be "obsessed with football" and dreamed of becoming a Lioness.

Her Darlington Football Club coach John Woolnough said the team was "devastated to hear of the tragic passing of Leah".

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He said while Leah had only joined the "family" this season, she had "quickly become a popular member amongst the girls".

"She was a joy to coach - always smiling and trying her best - and had shown big improvements during her time with us," the coach said.

As a mark of respect, the club's Under 11 game this weekend has been postponed.

A minute's silence will be observed at every other youth match.

Lingfield Education Trust said Leah was a "much loved" pupil at Mount Pleasant School in Darlington.

Nick Blackburn, the trust's chief executive, said: "The full details are still emerging but this is clearly a heartbreaking tragedy. Leah was a much loved part of our school and our thoughts and prayers are with her family, friends, and the school staff.

"Counselling is being arranged within the school for pupils and staff. We are all in a state of shock and we would ask that the privacy of the family and the school community is respected while we try to come to terms with what has happened."

Mr Blackburn said in an interview with Sky News that Leah was "obsessed with football", who dreamed of becoming a Lioness, before describing her as "very resilient a girl, she showed real grit and determination in her life".

Her family described Leah as a "happy, bubbly, go-lucky little girl" and said "God only takes the best".

"The beautiful smile, the giddy laugh, the silly jokes. You will never ever be forgotten baby girl," it continued.

"You will achieve your dream and become a player for the Lionesses, spread those wings. May you rest in paradise."

Shared on Facebook, the family said there are plans for a "balloon release" in a local field at 4pm on Monday.

The family is being supported by specially trained police officers.

Denise McGuckin, managing director of Hartlepool Borough Council, which operates Carlton Adventure, said: "We can confirm that a tragic incident occurred during one of the centre's instructor-led outdoor education forest walks near to Carlton-in-Cleveland yesterday.

"We are utterly devastated and heartbroken and our thoughts are with Leah's family and friends and all those affected.

"We are working closely with our partner agencies to carry out a full investigation and we are temporarily suspending all outdoor activities and residential breaks managed by the council.

"Whilst the investigation is being carried out it would be inappropriate for us to comment further."

On Wednesday, North Yorkshire Police said officers were responding to a mudslide which happened at 1.15pm in Carlton-in-Cleveland.

The force said: "We can confirm that one person has sadly died as a result of the incident. Our thoughts are with their family and friends during this difficult time."

No one else was injured during the incident.

The scene was cordoned off throughout the afternoon and members of the public were asked to avoid the area.

Enzo Maresca, Chelsea and the chess thesis that explains his football vision

Pawn Sacrifice came out in cinemas a decade ago. In phonetical terms, it sounds more Soho than Chelsea.

But a blue movie, it wasn’t. Nor was it a box-office hit. The film, like Chelsea, dramatically underperformed its estimated budget. Tobey Maguire and Liev Schreiber were in the leading roles and it still flopped. But Enzo Maresca enjoyed the re-telling of Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky’s ‘Match of the Century’ for the meeting of minds as much as the Cold War intrigue that surrounded a chess match in Reykjavik in 1972.

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Towards the end of his playing career, Maresca began studying chess. He found a teacher while in Palermo and must, in time, have learned the finer details of the Sicilian Defence and Fegatello, the delectably named ‘Fried Liver Attack’.

It goes without saying that managers at Chelsea have become chopped liver very quickly in the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital era. Maresca is expected to be their sixth in two years if you count a forlorn and fleeting interim like Bruno Saltor, a sequence of events that brings the Italian term for checkmate to mind: Scacco Matto. ‘Matto’ means bonkers, crazy. But we digress.

Maresca thought learning the rudiments of chess would prepare him for management. Anyone strolling around the library at Coverciano, the Italian Football Federation’s coaching school on the outskirts of Florence, which is to UEFA Pro Licences what Harvard Business School is to MBAs, can pull down his thesis and read about how the hypermodern Nimzo-Indian defence used by every world chess champion since Jose Raul ‘The Human Chess Machine’ Capablanca relates to Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City sides.

“A coach can only benefit from acquiring the mind of a good chess player,” Maresca argued. “The proof being the development of a number of mental skills” that are excellent for “the prefrontal cortex”.

He listed them as “gaining the dexterity to devise tactics and strategy, improve creativity (important for the surprise factor)” not to mention the way the game “facilitates concentration.” The 44-year-old also claimed: “Chess teaches you to control the initial excitement when you see something good and trains you to think objectively when you see yourself in danger.”

No doubt having paid Garry Kasparov-like attention to how Chelsea have recently been run, Maresca still somehow deduced that a potentially reputation-toppling move away from Leicester could be worth it, irrespective of the experiences of Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino. One can only deduce he thinks he’s playing chess, the kind that beats Deep Blue and AI models like AlphaZero, while those guys were playing checkers.

As the opening gambits about Maresca’s judgement (or lack thereof) in taking the job draw to a close, the parallels he makes with chess are, in all seriousness, well observed.

“The chess board is like a football pitch that can be divided into three channels — a central one and two external ones,” he highlighted. “In football as in chess, an inside game can be more interesting as it’s the quickest and most direct towards goal or the king.”

Controlling the middle is fundamental, as Guardiola emphasised to Maresca during his time on his staff, either directly through classic midfielders a la Xavi, Sergio Busquets and Andres Iniesta or indirectly with inverted full-backs a la Philipp Lahm or Rico Lewis acting like knights in chess. Build up through the middle and the pitch opens up like the board, the angles of attack become manifold.

In football terms, the Italian Maresca is influenced by the Spanish juego de posicion .  He cites Paul Morphy, the Johan Cruyff to Fischer’s Guardiola, on the “ability to see combinations clearly” and how “the positional game is, first and foremost, the ability to arrange the pieces in the most effective way.”

Then there’s the surprise element to chess, which in football terms, again might be considered being on the cusp of taking the Chelsea job as an up-and-coming coach. Maresca instead sees it as the little tweaks from game to game or within a game that can force an opponent to play to their weaknesses and lose confidence and time.

Chelsea given permission to speak to Maresca, expected to agree contract

“During a world chess championship game in 1991, Viktor Korchnoi took an hour and 20 minutes in making his 13th movement in response to an unexpected variation by his rival Anatoly Karpov,” Maresca explained. “Karpov’s move was not checkmate but the time advantage he gained by surprising his rival was definitely decisive. Korchnoi needed to reorganise and revise his strategy and tactics.”

So many Soviets feature in Maresca’s thesis, one imagines Roman Abramovich and Marina Granovskaia, Chelsea’s former owner and chief executive respectively, would have been every bit as impressed as Boehly and Behdad Eghbali.

He could become the seventh Italian to bestride the dugout at Stamford Bridge. Two of them won the league, one the Champions League, another the Europa League . All of them, perhaps with the exception of a fellow West Brom alumnus Roberto Di Matteo, were more experienced than Maresca and operated within a club with a different owner who spent big but in a more rational and effective way.

Maresca is expected to arrive on the back of winning the Championship with Leicester after threatening the 100-point barrier. He even came within a game of matching a 104-year record for the most second-division wins (32) in a single season. Some call it Marescaball. His supervisor at Coverciano would probably define it Maresca pawn.

On the face of it, he seems part of the new wave of Italian coaching, which has washed Francesco Farioli up at Ajax and led Juventus to settle on Thiago Motta. He was at the table for that famous meal in Manchester featuring Guardiola, Roberto De Zerbi, Daniele De Rossi and Aleksandar Kolarov — not as Pep’s guest but as one of his assistants. The halo effect that comes from working with the Catalan can dazzle employers. Mikel Arteta’s success at Arsenal upon leaving Guardiola’s staff led Parma to offer Maresca a job when he was the coach of City’s elite development squad.

It did not work out.

Maresca inherited a team disoriented by the enthusiasm of new American owners who spent lavishly (€80million!) on unknown youngsters from all over the world (particularly Argentina and Romania) and, unable to put their fingers on what was going wrong, sacked a couple of managers in their first season. The flux was so great even players of Joshua Zirkzee ’s potential didn’t shine and Parma surprisingly went down. Maresca was asked to pick up the pieces in Serie B and, more specifically, to turn a couple dozen individuals into a team. Sounds relatively familiar, doesn’t it?

Despite having the highest wage bill in the second division, Maresca was fired within a matter of months. He left Parma with 17 points from 13 games, narrowly outside the relegation play-out spot to avoid Serie C.

Upon reflection, Maresca still called it a “positive experience”. His qualms were a lack of patience (“They gave me a three-year contract, and when you do a multi-year contract it’s because there’s a project idea behind it) and unrealistic expectations (“No one ever told me that in the first year we should have gone to Serie A , all the more so when 15 or so new players arrive in the summer”).

Still, the local media criticised him for using players such as Simon Sohm out of position and, having complained about the disruption of too much transfer activity, he still had the nerve to insist: “Parma could have made the play-offs with the three players we identified for the January transfer window.”

Chelsea fans, this is Enzo Maresca – the leading candidate to replace Pochettino

The scars he suffered at the Ennio Tardini made Maresca think twice about taking the Leicester job last summer. “I was a little fearful,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport, “because it resembled Parma: a big club had been relegated and there was huge pressure to immediately bounce back.”

But Leicester set a record pace out of the blocks and finished the first half of the season with 58 points, a testament to Maresca’s impact but also the sort of spending that led the Premier League to refer the club to an independent commission for an alleged PSR breach and for failing to submit their audited financial accounts to the league for the 2022-23 season, when they were still in the top flight.

Automatic promotion was not all plain sailing. After a 3-1 win against Swansea in January, Maresca was frustrated by the King Power’s exasperation with the somnolent side of his tiki-taka style. “Probably when you win, win, win at home, and you continue to win, people think it’s easy. But it’s not easy. I arrive in this club to play with this idea. The moment there is some doubt about the idea, the day after, I will leave. It’s so clear. No doubts.”

He did not appreciate the failure to sign Stefano Sensi on loan from Inter Milan after Chelsea recalled Cesare Casadei and Wilfred Ndidi suffered an injury. Leicester’s second half of the season yielded 39 points, enough to get over the line in first place but a drop-off that looked like it might spiral after defeats to Middlesbrough , Leeds and Queens Park Rangers in the spring.

Unlike Ipswich Town , who punched well above their weight to return to the Premier League for the first time in 22 years, Leicester met expectations. After all, having 18-goal Jamie Vardy in the Championship felt like a cheat code even with him now firmly in the twilight of his career. Chelsea, meanwhile, evidently share Maresca’s view that promotion was not as easy as it seemed. That Chelsea and the former midfielder have settled on one another, frankly, remains a surprise.

To return to chess terminology, neither found themselves in Zugzwang: a situation wherein any move can only weaken one’s position and carries the risk of checkmate — but not moving isn’t an option. Chelsea, for instance, didn’t need to sack Pochettino. Maresca wasn’t obliged to leave Leicester.

Having lost the benefit of the doubt, it’s only fair to second-guess these grandmasters.

Enzo Maresca: Growing up with De Zerbi, playing like Gazza and why he's 'worth' the risk

(Top photo: David Rogers/Getty Images)

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James Horncastle covers Serie A for The Athletic. He joins from ESPN and is working on a book about Roberto Baggio.