92-year-old passes his Maths GCSE with highest grade

Derek Skipper from Orwell in Cambridgeshire sat the exam at Comberton Village College

92-year-old Derek Skipper was all smiles this morning after learning he passed his maths GCSE, more than 75 years since he took his last maths exam.

When Derek was at school he used a slide rule to help figure out the answers to complex maths problems, but for his GCSE exam he had a trusty calculator.

"There were a lot of things I'd never heard of or weren't known when I was at school, like Venn diagrams and data collection - I never had those," he said.

Derek passed with a 5 - the highest grade he could get for his paper.

He told the BBC he was "very pleased indeed" with the result.

Derek took his maths GCSE exam alongside lots of other students

Derek studied for his maths GCSE using a free online course run by the Cam Academy Trust.

"There's so little on television these days. This was much more interesting, some people do crosswords and this is my equivalent."

He said that he found videos useful to understand some of the maths he had not come across before.

"I started looking at YouTube for maths and saw how many things I didn't know," he said.

"I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot about using a calculator. I think I found it easier than a lot of other people on the course."

On the day of the exam, he had to use a magnifying glass to read some of the questions.

"My family thought I was nuts for trying it but [were] also very supportive and helped me out."