Schoolboy Jimmy Cooney has sailed through a maths exam - four years early.

The seven-year-old wizard with numbers has passed an examination after being entered for a higher grade by his teachers.

Long Lee Primary School head teacher Loiuse Smith said: "Jimmy is very unusual. We have been aware of his gifts over the last two years - ever since the end of year one.

"He is very good at manipulating problems and sees the patterns in numbers very quickly."

This year Jimmy had been given extra maths tuition at school, but next year he would be joining pupils two years older then himself, she added.

And he is not daunted by the prospect of joining the bigger pupils. Jimmy said: "I just like number work very much - I like mental arithmetic. I'm better at numbers than mum and sometimes help my sister."

At home in Long Lee Lane, Keighley, Beverley and Colin Cooney told of how they knew their son Jimmy was unusual as a toddler.

As a two-year-old his favourite television programme was Words and Numbers. His 41 year-old mum recalls one instance when they were on holiday and he started reciting his 11 times table as he sat in his car seat.

Beverley and Colin, 40, a production manager, were flabbergasted because nobody had ever taught Jimmy the tables.

"We looked at each other and said when he gets to 12 he won't get any further - but he just carried on. He was almost three at the time. But it was only when he started school that we found out he was exceptional at number work."

In May this year, when he was due to take his key stage 1 tests, his teachers entered him instead for the key stage two maths examination, sat by 11-year-olds..

Added Beverley: "We're very proud.

"He enjoys football and loves watching athletics, but maths is his real love.

"He is always testing me. Every day he'll ask me something and before I can work it out he has the answer.

"Even on his computer he prefers the maths programme to anything else.

"And when his older sister Rebekah, who is eight, asks me a question, he likes to answer it. I have to tell him to let her do it on her own," said Beverley

Jimmy has his sights set on becoming a bank manager - so that he can buy his mum and dad a car.