Berkshire Pupil Stars In Front Of 100m Audience On Chinese TV

10 May 2016

A 13-year-old pupil from LVS Ascot has become a star in the Far East after appearing on the popular Super Brain China memory challenge show in front of over 100m viewers late last month.

Henry Bole, a year 9 pupil from Crowthorne, had received months of extra tuition from his mentor James Paterson, a teacher at leading independent all-ability school LVS Ascot, and his preparation almost paid off as he narrowly lost out to a 21-year-old university student from China whilst representing Great Britain. He was even chased by autograph hunters and fans wanting to have their pictures taken with him during filming of the show.

LVS Ascot has a pedigree in memory skills, with Psychology teacher James Paterson a four-time runner up in the UK Memory Championships, holder of a world memory record, and participant in Super Brain China himself in 2015. Henry has featured in the tv documentary Memory Slam, about the UK Schools’ Memory Championships, in which he reached the final four aged just 12 and smashed a national schools’ record by memorising 104 random objects in order in just fifteen minutes.

The Chinese tv company who make Super Brain China heard about Henry’s exploits and he was subsequently selected to join three-time World Memory Champion Ben Pridmore, current UK Memory Champion Marlo Knight and former World Mental Calculation Champion Robert Fountain in the Great Britain team that flew out to the Nanjing to take on China’s memory experts in one of the country’s biggest tv shows. He told the show’s presenter: “I am here to avenge my mentor, James Paterson, who lost here last year”.

However, the producers could not find anyone to represent China in Henry’s age group who could match his skills, so his selected opponent was a 21-year-old university student who had taken part in the show before and competed at the World Memory Championships. Their head-to-head challenge involved memorising the order of 100 models of pandas which were situated on unique grass mats, and then working out which four pandas had been moved by the judges, who were all Chinese celebrities. Whilst Henry was defeated by a slightly faster and more accurate rival, it was a gallant effort as Great Britain lost by two challenges to one with one drawn event.

The memory techniques taught to Henry are commonplace at LVS Ascot, where James Paterson leads revision classes for students, and even parents so they can help their children revise. These are complimented by additional sessions for students before and after school to hone skills such as memory palace recall and mind mapping in preparation for their exams.

James said: “I’m really proud of Henry, he was unfazed by being part of a team of adult memory champions or by taking on a much older contestant in front of a huge audience. The training sessions at LVS Ascot have really helped him progress and gain confidence, and it is a huge benefit that we are able to provide memory coaching such as this to all our students in the build up to exams. They are beneficial in reducing stress and our learning techniques will help them be successful in GCSEs and A-Levels and beyond”.

 

Photo: LVS Ascot pupil Henry Bole (3rd left) in the poster for Super Brain China v Great Britain