A NINE-year-old is among 20 of Britain’s brightest children contending to be named this year’s Child Genius on national TV.

Daisy, from Dorchester, was left speechless after making it through a challenging selection process which pitted her against intelligent children from across the country.

Daisy first spotted a poster for the Channel 4 competition in Dorchester Library and had to travel to London with her parents to take part in the gruelling knock out rounds. answering tricky questions on subjects such as general knowledge, maths and memory recall.

Daisy said: “I had seen the programme before and wanted to challenge myself to take part. I was amazed and discombobulating when I made it into the TV programme.”

With a love of words, arithmetic and fascinating facts, Daisy was not daunted to face the stiff competition, despite being the second youngest child to make it through the finals.

Daisy said: “I had an amazing time at Child Genius and made some new best friends.

“There were only five girls starting the competition alongside 15 boys, so us girls really stuck together and wanted each other to beat the boys.”

In the first episode, Daisy is among the 20 children who are set a memory recall round where they must mentally navigate a map of the highways of Great Britain, including 80 motorways and A roads, 60 towns and cities and 46 counties.

In the opening episode her parents are seen sitting anxiously, watching. to see whether Daisy is one of the 16 children who go forward to the next stage of the competition.

Daisy gains a lot of her impressiveknowledge from a love of reading.

She said: “I can’t get enough of books.

“The boys at school tease me by asking if I was born with a book in my hand.”

With a reading age that has been assessed at 13 and a half years of age, Daisy is an avid reader of teen fiction, having read 450-page novels in a day.

Daisy is just as keen on animal rights, having been raised as a vegetarian, and is eager to use her talents to help animals in the future and pursue a career as a vet.

Daisy’s parents, Neil and Lindsay said: “We are just so proud of Daisy for being brave enough to take on this daunting challenge.

“There was a difficult selection processto get through, even before the actual competition begun.

“To stand on a dark stage under bright spotlights with an audience of hundreds to answer really tricky questions would be hard for anyone – let alone a nine-year-old. However, Daisy approached all of it with enthusiasm and had a great time meeting a new group of lovely kids, who really supported each other." – and commiserated with each other – as the competition hotted up.”

The first episode of the new five part Channel 4 series, Child Genius, will be aired tonight at 9pm.