Go to the Head of the Class Board Game

Since the late thirties, the Go to the Head of the Class board game has been challenging players.  The game is a testing question and answer style race game.  In the 1949 directions is the statement, “Teacher has that annoying habit of continually asking questions and, of course, the answers you give play a most important part in your advancement…”

This is true.  The first player, who reaches the head of class by correctly answering the teacher’s questions, and moving their game piece forward, is the winner of the game.  Today, the game has had a series of updates and now offers three levels of play; Student (youngest), Scholar (a bit older) and Graduate (teens and adults).  Originally there were only two levels: Junior (younger) and Senior (older).

Because these different levels of play provide questions of various difficulties for the different ages of players, younger and older children can play great together.  Go to the Head of the Class is an ideal game to play through the whole school year to help keep minds in shape.

Rules and spaces on the board have changed over time.  Below are directions for the 1949 game.

The board consists of children’s school desks lined up in front of the teacher’s blackboard.  Each row of desks is numbered and represents a grade.  Starting from Kindergarten, players strive to move forward by answering questions from the ‘Quiz booklet’.

To begin play, a player chooses a game piece character.  There are four boys and four girls to choose from.  A player could be Sissy, Red, Butch, or Skinny as a boy, or Liz, Buttercup, Dimples, or Susie as a girl.

Each player rolls the dice and moves his piece onto the desk space of the matching number rolled.  The player, who is the least forward, then rolls again to receive the first question from the booklet.  Any player can be chosen to be the teacher.  This player will ask the other players questions and when it is his turn, any other player can ask him a question.

Players roll the dice to determine which question they will be asked.  Each of the booklet’s pages is numbered 2-12 (since 1 cannot be rolled on the dice), and so if a player rolled a 5, he would be asked question 5 on the page of his level.  Starting on page one, a new page is used after each turn.

If answered correctly, the player moves ahead 6 desks.  If he answers it wrong, he moves back 2.  The Dunce Corner space is used when a player has answered wrong too many times to take him off the board. His piece then sits here until he can move forward.

Included in the game are a couple additions of cards; Examination cards and Luck cards.  A player picks one of these depending if his desk he has landed on has a red or black inkwell.  Landing on a desk with a red inkwell directs a player to pick an Examination card.  If he passes the test, he moves ahead 12 desks!  An entire grade on the board!  If he answers incorrectly he moves back 5.  A desk with a black inkwell directs a player to pick a Luck card.  A player follows the directions given on the card.  Examples of these cards are ‘advance 5 desk for cleaning the erasers’ and ‘Go Back 3 desks for passing notes’.

Whoever reaches desk 100, first, wins the game.

Go to the Head of the Class offers a quick game to test a player’s knowledge in a fun way.

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