Peter and Paula Imafidon, 9-year-old twins from Waltham Forest
in northeast London, are a part of the highest-achieving clan in the
history of Great Britain education. The two youngest siblings are about
to make British history as the youngest students to ever enter high
school
They astounded veteran experts of academia when they became the
youngest to ever pass the University of Cambridge’s advanced mathematics
exam. That’s on top of the fact they have set world records when they
passed the A/AS-level math papers.
Chris Imafidon, their father,
said he’s not concerned about his youngest children’s ability to adapt
to secondary school despite their tender age. “We’re delighted with the
progress they have made,” he said. “Because they are twins they are
always able to help and support each other.”
To Peter and Paula’s
parents, this is nothing new. Chris Imafidon said he and his wife have
been through this before: they have other super-gifted, overachieving
children.
Peter and Paula’s sister, Anne-Marie, now 20, holds the
world record as the youngest girl to pass the
A-level computing, when
she was just 13. She is now studying at arguably the most renowned
medical school in the United States, Johns Hopkins University, in
Baltimore.
Another sister, Christina, 17, is the youngest student
to ever get accepted and study at an undergraduate institution at any
British university at the tender age of 11.
And Samantha, now age
12, had passed two rigorous high school-level mathematics and statistics
exams at the age of 6, something that her twin siblings, Peter and
Paula, also did.
Chris Imafidon migrated to London from Nigeria in
West Africa over 30 years ago. And despite his children’s jaw-dropping,
history-making academic achievements, he denies there is some “genius
gene” in his family. Instead, he credits his children’s success to the
Excellence in Education program for disadvantaged inner-city children.
“Every
child is a genius,” he told British reporters. “Once you identify the
talent of a child and put them in the environment that will nurture that
talent, then the sky is the limit. Look at Tiger Woods or the Williams
sisters [Venus and Serena] — they were nurtured. You can never rule
anything out with them. The competition between the two of them makes
them excel in anything they do.”
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