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Eye for it: Alex Evans, 12, is one of the youngest pupils sitting a GCSE this year

While her peers enjoy a care-free summer, one Arkley girl will be fretting over trigonometry and algebra as one of the youngest pupils to sit a GCSE this year.

Alex Evans, of Barnet Road, will take her maths GCSE this year at the age of 12, four years before most of her school friends.

And she is aiming high.

"I'm hoping to get an A* and if I don't get it, I'll be disappointed and upset," she said. "I've liked maths ever since I was about three years old, when my dad started asking me maths questions."

Alex's dad, Richard Evans, is a maths teacher at Copland School, in Wembley, and although she is in Year 7 at a school in Bushey, Hertfordshire, he has always encouraged her in the subject.

He said: "Any dad teaches a child his profession. Every-body sees numbers everywhere and you can get children excited early on.

"And you can work out the average number of goals scored by Chelsea, for example, which is very important. Silly things like that can be fun."

In recent years, Alex has also attended her dad's study sessions on a Saturday morning at his school, where most of her fellow students are five years her senior.

She said: "It's only in the morning. I'm quite glad I do it because otherwise I'd be stuck in the house and I'd be asleep."

Mr Evans added: "The alternative to her coming to the class is to have her at home doing absolutely nothing. She calls me sir like everyone else in the class. There's no dad in my class, no way. Only sir."

Alex usually spends between one and two hours a day studying maths and plans to study it at university - although she admits she prefers art.

"I'm quite good at other subjects, particularly art," she said. "I'd prefer to do art at university but I wouldn't tell my dad that."

8:16am Wednesday 14th May 2008

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