Brendon Matusch loves math. At the age of eight, he's already mastered long division, long multiplication and fractions.

In March, the Sudbury Christian Academy student decided to test his mettle against the rest of Canada with the Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest, writing an exam at Laurentian University.

The result? He won the gold medal for the Sudbury area, and came in third for his age group in the country.

“I definitely practised a lot,” Brendon, who should be in Grade 3, but skipped a grade and is enrolled in Grade 4, said.

“I did a practice sheet every day. Then I went to the thing. It actually wasn't that hard. I screwed up like three questions in the whole test. One of them was because I didn't count right. I was supposed to count these tiles, and then I screwed up.”

He said the test was harder than those he writes at school, although “a lot quicker to do, because you don't have to show your work.”

Katrina Kasunich, the Grade 3/4 teacher at the small, private Christian school, which is located at Glad Tidings Church, said Brendon is so good at math that he gives the teachers pointers. She said she's “incredibly proud” of her student.

“He puts in so much effort at school and at home,” Kasunich said. “He went and did this on a Saturday, which is quite a brave thing to do. Not just myself, but the entire school is proud of his accomplishments. It says something about not just him, but his family as well, and the school, that he's done so well.”

Posted by Arron Pickard