Ten-year-old Yi Fan is no ordinary boy. At an age when most children are still struggling to get to grips with the three Rs, the Watford schoolboy is studying degree level mathematics and even limbering up for his Grade 7 piano exam.

Yi, a pupil at Knutsford School, has already amassed a staggering array of academic qualifications, including an A grade in AS level maths.

Last year, while still only nine, he beat more than 100,000 11-year-olds to win a national primary school maths competition and is ranked in the top hundred year nine students in the country – children a full three years older than him.

Yi, a modest and softly spoken young boy, also excels at physics and English and is learning to play the oboe.

So how do you teach a child a subject he knows more about than you do?

“You don’t,” admitted deputy headteacher Kevin Sullivan. “You just have to point him in the right direction and try to keep him interested.

“I’ve been teaching for 35 years and have never seen anything like him. We can’t really teach him maths so we use a professor from the University of Hertfordshire.”

Proud mum Aihe, who is currently searching for a specialist secondary school place for her son, said: “He has always been very eager to learn and very inquisitive. We have never had to push him because he wants to learn.”

“He started playing the piano because of his older brother and works very hard in his studies because he likes to compete with him.”

Yi, who will take his Grade 7 piano exam in the coming days, said: “I like to challenge myself. Sometimes I can find things very difficult but if you want to be good at something you have to practice it.”

So what does a boy who is good at almost everything want to do when he grows up?

“I haven’t really decided,” he replied. “I am good at a lot of things so it’s hard for me to decide. I just want to carry on learning as much as I can.”

Yi, however, is the first to admit that even he is not good at everything. He added: “I am not so good at football and am not in the school team. I will keep working at it but you can’t be good everything.”