An eight-year-old girl who can answer up to 173 maths questions in just one minute has won a national times table contest – beating almost 400,000 others.

Brooke Cressey, from Sittingbourne, has been practising her maths using Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRockstars) since her school introduced the online quiz a couple of years ago.

Brooke Cressey practising her maths using TTRockstars

It challenges players to answer a series of multiplication and division questions as quickly as possible.

Brooke, a Year 4 pupil at Bobbing Village School, competed in TTRockstars’ England Rocks 2021 contest, which ran from November 8 to 11.

A total of 398,164 pupils took part from 4,035 schools across the country, but it was Brooke who was crowned champion under her username Heath Fox.

She answered a whopping 41,627 questions in just four hours – that is 173 every minute, and 2,880 more than the second place player.

Brooke’s father, Mark, said there was no stopping his daughter, who now has the mathematical Guinness World Record title in her sights.

The 44-year-old said: “The highest score achieved on TTRockstars in a minute is 208 and Brooke’s had plenty of 210s – that’s why she’s going for the world record title now.”

About the competition, he said: “Me and my wife, Shelley, knew she was going to be up the leader board after a couple of days, but Brooke didn’t think she’d win.

"We don’t know how she works it out so fast – it’s unreal for an eight-year-old.”

He added: “She doesn’t blink for a minute while she’s doing it because, she says, she loses her rhythm so it did take a lot out of her.

"She’s had a break since but she just can’t put it down; she loves numbers.”

Mr Cressey, who said his daughter spends about half-an-hour each morning on the programme, said words couldn’t explain how proud he was of Brooke.

“It’s like your duty being a dad is done, that’s how I look at it.”

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