Each year, the UK Schools Memory Championships are sponsored by national government initiative Aimhigher.  The programme, designed to encourage students into higher education, is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

Last year’s national UK Schools Memory Championships were dominated by the memory and recall prowess of three teenage girls, RehnumahInsan, Kate McKenna and Sophie Stephenson, all of whom hail from the region.

But watch out girls – you’re going to get BIG competition from the boys this time!  In fact, there are six boys in the list of top ten contestants competing in thisregional final.  Currently in the number two slot is Michael Hainsworth from High Tunstall College of Science in Hartlepool, who achieved an admirable score of 988 in his regional heat by recalling 66 words, 62 numbers, 14 events/dates and 16 cards in sequence.  His college is well represented, with fellow pupils ZacTarbah, Alison Roxburgh and Matthew Clark also in the top ten. Sophie Stephenson is, we have to say, streets ahead of the pack at this point – in her regional heat she scored 1219.5 points, recalling 108 words, 72 numbers, 14 events/dates and 21 cards.  Not far behind Michael, currently in third place, is Rhiannon Green from Stanley School, Stanley – who scored 974 and did really well in the words discipline - remembering 99 - together with 65 numbers, 9 events/dates and 16 cards.

The Schools Memory Championships are the world’s leading and most influential student memory competition.  Established in 2008 by educational support consultancy Inspire Education (Inspire-Ed), supported by The World Memory SportsCouncil (WMSC) and held annually, they have been hugely successful in improving and consolidating the memory learning skills and overall confidence of many thousands of students in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. 

The championships’ enthralling and comprehensive learning mechanism is delivered by a team of Inpire-Ed presenters who, supported by eight times world memory Champion Dominic O’Brien,visit each participating establishment to enthuse and, alongside its existing teaching resource, train its young people on how to develop and enhance their working memory.  In a strategically crafted multi-layered programme into which the four competitions disciplines - random words, random numbers, dates & events and sequences of playing cardsare introduced, students are also shown how to develop and apply their newly acquired memory skills to their studies through national curriculum-based examples.

MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS…

“The competition is a great way to embed memory techniques into education and to develop life-long learning skills, which are transferable across the curriculum and throughout life”says Neil Denley, Director of Inspire Education and co-founder of the Championships.  “As well as the realisation that they have acquired a powerful set of skills, this gives the teenagers motivation and the self-confidence to try memorising virtually anything.”

We are on the cusp of a spectacular scientific revolution in understanding how the brain works.  Working memory, our ability to remember and manipulate information, is at its centre. Working memory is our brain’s `post-it note’. We use those little yellow slips of paper to make mental scribbles of information we need to remember and think about.  Can we increase our working memory space?  Brain training is an exciting and growing new area in scientific research. There is now a great deal of evidence available which demonstrates our brain’s plasticity: that it can actually change - shrink or grow - depending on what we do. For example, there are studies showing that taxi drivers’ brains ‘grow on the job’ as they build up the detailed information they need to navigate around a city.

“This has powerful implications for learning, proving that our brains do keep on growing as we mature” says Dominic O’Brien. “With exam success dependent on making good use of one’s memory, mastering memorisation techniques early on is a great platform for success.  It is crucially important to train our children’s brains while they are still developing.  In this way, we are also able to improve their prospects – both in the classroom and later on, in the workplace.”

Research* has shown that using memory training to challenge the minds of young learners has a direct impact on attainment and concentration at school, and that working memory is a more powerful predictor of academic success than IQ.  Training the memory also leads to an increase in problem-solving ability - or fluid intelligence, as it is sometimes known – and the gain in intelligence is proportionate to the amount of training. So, the more training, the greater the improvement in ability.

*Alloway TP and Alloway R: Working Memory: is it the new IQ?  Nature Precedings 2008
Jaeggi SM, Buschkuehl M, Jonides J and Perrig WJ: Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 2008

Any educational establishment interested in registering for the 2011 UK Schools Memory Championships (they have until 31st May to do so) should contact Neil or Stewart Denley at Inspire Education – visit www.inspire-ed.com, or call 01344 890126.  The National Final will be held in London on Tuesday 19th July(date tbc).

Also visit:  www.schoolsmemorychampionships.com     &       www.worldmemorysportscouncil.com