Pupils from Greater Merseyside recently competed against schools from all over the country in this year's U.K Schools Memory Championship.  

Arriving at Wolverhampton University the pupils dived straight into the competition, starting with the numbers discipline.  The pupils were given 20 rows of 40 numbers and had to memorise as many as possible.  Next round was words, which were given out in 10 groups of 20, and again remembering as many as possible.

After lunch the pupils returned to the competition to complete the last two disciplines. The first of the two was events, in which the pupils were to remember 50 fictional dates and events and then to recall the correct date and assign it to the relevant event.  The final round was to remember a full deck of cards in sequence, which had been shuffled by the adjudicator.

Ten Year 9 pupils from the 5 Knowsley Centres for Learning took part and were competing against a much older, and much more experienced groups, but that didn't stop them producing some of their personal best scores for the memory championship.

Ben Edwards, Support Worker at Kirkby Sports College reflected:

"The top three places were won by pupils aged 17, so for our pupils aged 13-14 to perform in the same league is such a testimony to their memory skills." 

"Especially as our pupils were only introduced to memory skills in May, to be finalists and do so well in under two months it makes you wonder how well they'd be if they had as much time as the other competitors!" 

All of the pupils taking part received a Rubic's cube, Rubic's 360 or Rubic's Revo puzzle for reaching the final which kept them occupied on the journey home (as well as waking a few sleeping commuters!).

Julie Wright, from Cowley Language College said:

"This was a fantastic opportunity and the girls thoroughly enjoyed the day. Dominic O'Brien is an amazing person and it is great that he is working with schools and providing students will valuable memory strategies that will stay with them for life. Without Aimhigher this would not have been possible so thank you!"

Jessica Banks and Chloe Leyland from Cowley Language College are pictured below with Dominic O'Brien, 8 times World Memory Champion.

Dominic O'Brien commented on the event:

"This is the most successful year we've had whilst doing the School's Memory Championship.  These are, by far, the best overall scores we've ever seen, even having the UK School's Records broken by several pupils."  

"With exam success dependent on making good use of one's memory, mastering memorisation techniques early on is a great platform for future success."