While most children were enjoying their summer break from school yesterday, a boy from Surrey was celebrating a record educational achievement after he became the youngest person in Britain to pass a GCSE exam.
Arran Fernandez (6), who has never been to school and is educated at home by his parents, was five years and 11 months when he sat the two papers of his foundation-tier maths exam in June. He gained the highest grade in the exam paper, grade D, and beat the record held by Rajaei Sharma, who was six years old when he passed an Information Technology exam last year.
There were no exam-result nerves that most Leaving Certificate and GCSE students experience, as Arran, clutching his pink-and-white teddy bear, admitted the exam was "a bit easy".
The mathematical prodigy, who was reading before he was three years old, said he was "very proud" of his achievement and was considering a career as a mathematician, a lorry driver, or a space explorer. "I'm very proud of myself and so are all my friends, my mummy and daddy and the rest of my family."
His father, Dr Neil Fernandez, a political economist, who won more than £1,000 sterling after he staked £50 that his son would pass the exam, said every child could pass exams at an early age with the proper encouragement.
"All children love to build and explore. What's most important is that they are helped to develop strong tools for doing so," he said. "We started to think that he would do the GCSE at a younger age but we only took the decision to put him in for the paper at the last moment. We have always encouraged an interest in maths and in everything really, and we tried to give him the opportunity to develop his mind from an early age."
Arran is now studying logarithms and slide rules.