AN 11-year-old maths prodigy has made it through to the next round of a TV competition to find Britain’s smartest youngster.

St Benedict’s pupil Christopher Hookway survived the first episode of Channel Four hit Child Genius presented by quiz guru Richard Osman.

The first episode showed the 16 contestants take on a maths round which mixed problems with mental arithmetic, and then a memory test where the children had an hour to remember facts about currencies around the globe before having their knowledge tested.

Despite an obvious bout of nerves leading to some incorrect answers, Christopher stacked up enough points to sail through to the next stage.

Christopher achieved an A* in GCSE maths last year before even leaving primary school, and dad Dr Simon Hookway said the added pressure of the round being based on his specialist subject added to the nerves.

He said: “One the day of filming the nerves hit us both and I think it was completely unexpected for him when he was up there on the podium.

“I was in the audience and was just thinking of how incredibly nervous he looked.

“We were all in the parents room before and it was fine but it obviously got worse when he went out there and had to do his stuff.

“As he is a maths genius the expectation was he would get everything right.

“The show focused on some incredibly high scorers but his total was comfortably enough to get into the next round.”

The family invited friends to watch the show but Dr Hookway was banned from pausing the show to add more insight.

He said: “We had a big event.

“I was under strict instructions not to pause so we could watch it all the way through .

“By the next morning I had already watched it two more times.”