AN 11-year-old maths prodigy narrowly missed out on making it to the final of a TV programme to find Britain's smartest youngster.

St Benedict's pupil Christopher Hookway was knocked out in the semi-finals of Channel Four's Child Genius competition in a sudden death spelling bee.

Christopher, who achieved his A* Maths GCSE before even leaving primary school, failed to guess the correct spelling of the word connoisseur but Dad Simon revealed there was another unscreened sudden death round where each of the children got their words wrong.

He said: "I guess they didn't show it because of time but there was another round where they all spelled other words incorrectly.

"The words on our hitlist to learn are connoisseur and tranquiliser and I am still not sure myself how to spell it.

"It was incredibly nerve wracking sitting up there knowing if he had got one right then he would have been in the final."

Mr Hookway, who lives in Ramsey, said the programme had portrayed him as being obsessed with Christopher winning the whole competition which was not the case.

He said: "I have watched all the episodes and I come across as a very pushy individual which is not the way I am at all.

"It looked as if I was unbelievably hard on him and that I was only interested in him winning.

"I am extraordinarily proud of how well he did.

"Obviously they did not show all the downtime we had when we were laughing and having fun in the swimming pool.

"There was a bit of publicity after his GCSE result but to be invited on a prime time quiz show is something different completely.

"There were parts where he looked nervous on the stage but it was all the lights and the drama of it all.

"The parts they showed where I was trying to psych him up where sliced and diced everywhere."

Christopher is now waiting for his GCSE result in Statistics with Simon predicting a minimum A grade, and is going to start A Level Maths modules.

He said: "He's very happy and loves going out playing football and has a very active social life.

"It is four weeks until the GCSE results come out and it will be a minimum of an A, and hopefully an A* but you have to be near enough perfect to get it.

"Now he is starting on his A Level which he is enjoying much more than statistics."