Six-year-old Aarya spent his holidays brushing up on maths and English, and now he’s raring to get back to school this week.
The Maharishi School pupil, from Epping, has been doing a little bit of school work each day over the past four weeks to keep up his ranking as the advanced year 1 Kumon student in Australia.
Kumon is an individualised learning program that teaches children to study and problem-solve on their own while learning at their own pace.
Aarya’s English test scores from last year were compared against 2080 other prep-aged children around Australia, and he came top of the class. In mathematics, Aarya placed second out of 1789 prep-aged children.
He’s now solving fractions problems fit for year 5 pupils and comprehends texts used in the year 4 curriculum.
Aarya’s parents, Sivakumar Gnanamuthu and Kumudha Krishnan, say their son enjoys learning and they’re often surprised by his capabilities.
“We are from India and have lived in Australia for 10 years,” Mr Gnanamuthu said.
“It was my childhood dream to come to Australia and raise my family.
“Aarya started talking when he was 10 months – he was like a parrot, just repeating everything we say.
“He loved books and his bedtime stories. By the time he was two, we would read books together.”
“We would like to thank Kumon Mill Park and the teachers Val Tang and Alan Tang, and all the other teachers,” Mr Gnanamuthu said.
