A 13-year-old Ascot pupil has become a star in the Far East after appearing on a Chinese memory challenge show in front of over 100m viewers.

Henry Bole, a Year 9 pupil at LVS Ascot from Crowthorne, appeared on Super Brain China but narrowly lost out to a 21-year-old university student from China whilst representing Great Britain. 

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, all Chinese celebrities. 

As the producers couldn’t find anyone to represent China in Henry’s age group, he was pitted against the 21-year-old university student.

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.

Henry received months of tuition from his mentor 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.

Mr Paterson 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.”