A nine-year-old boy from Bolton has managed to complete his maths GCSE before leaving primary school.
Leonardo Del Rosso, age nine, had been preparing to sit the exam for months and was very pleased with his Grade C result.
The youngster - who now lives in Mostyn near Holywell in Wales - was likely the youngest in the country to gain a GCSE in November.
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Proud mum Emma told North Wales Live how her "bright" boy's talents became apparent at a very early age - mastering his times tables at the age of four.
Science is also nothing short of a "pure passion" for Leonardo, particularly physics.
Emma began home schooling her eldest son during lockdown - and quickly realised he was speeding through his maths work. To help keep him busy and engaged, she gave him a GCSE past paper to try and was "astounded" by his knowledge.
The mum-of-four said: "I knew he was a bright boy but it wasn't until home schooling him that I realised how advanced he was. The work he was being set by teachers was done in minutes so I had to find him more to do.
"I ended up printing a foundation level GCSE maths paper to see if there were areas of maths he didn't know that we could focus on. He didn't do it in exam conditions or anything then, at his own pace.
"To my surprise this nine-year-old got near full marks. I don't even know how he knows all this stuff to be honest!"
Emma said that her son then wanted to give the real thing a try and, upon looking into it, she found that it wouldn't be impossible for her nine-year-old to sit a GCSE exam.
With his goal in mind, over the last summer holidays, Leonardo spent weeks with maths tutor Jade Ashbrook who felt he was "more than capable" of taking on the exam years ahead of his peers.
She usually prepares teens for their exams, and was stunned to have a student half the usual age raring to take on a GCSE but knew "within minutes" of meeting Leonardo "he was a very gifted young man”.
Originally, he wanted to do GCSE Science but unfortunately that’s not possible as he'd be unable to complete the practical requirements.
However, Ms Ashbrook was able to get Leonardo set up as an external candidate to take his maths exam.
Emma told North Wales Live how her son sat the intermediate level exam at Hawarden High School to "get a feel of exam conditions" outside their noisy house-of-six.
She said: "We'd been able to visit the school ahead of the exams and get a feel for the place beforehand.
"We even got to sit in on some A-level science classes which Leonardo loved. I sat at the back of the class and was blown away by the fact he knew every answer."
His mum compared him to a "Little Sheldon", referring to the popular Big Bang Theory character.
Emma adds that, even though he's a maths whizz ahead of his years, her "fun-loving boy" is "just your average nine-year-old" that also loves Minecraft, playing video games and spending time with his friends.
Leonardo is already hard at work to take on the advanced maths exam - with his sights firmly set on that top A* grade.
