Twelve year old Darren Toh, who was born deaf, has been awarded the highest possible IQ score by MENSA, months after passing his GCSE Maths exam with a Grade 9.
Darren did not speak until the age of five after being diagnosed with bilateral genetic congenital deafness and first learned to communicate by using sign language. However, it has now been confirmed he is among the 1% of MENSA applicants to record a maximum IQ score of 162, surpassing the figure reportedly held by both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. Any MENSA score above 140 is considered ‘genius’ level.
Darren received a special needs statement and enrolled in a specialist school at a young age, but his progress by the age of seven encouraged his parents to place him to MTS. Since then, he has won the academic prize every year and developed a passion for maths. Last summer, he sat a GCSE Maths exam – four years earlier than usual – and passed with a score of 92%. He has also been at the forefront of our enrichment programme and was part of the school team that reached last year’s final of the international Maths in Motion challenge.
Darren lives in Aughton with his parents, younger sister Corinne, aged eight, and 14-year-old brother Brendan, who has autism. He also plays piano at grade six, has studied saxophone to grade five and is at grade four in LAMDA drama and performing arts.
Headmaster David Wickes said: “Darren is a remarkable young man who has overcome great personal challenges and everybody at Merchant Taylors’ is extremely proud of his achievements.
“To make such incredible progress at this young age is testament to his determination and intelligence, as well as the support of his family, friends and teachers. There is no doubt he has a bright future ahead of him and we will continue to do all we can through our academic and extra-curricular programmes to help him realise his enormous potential.”
Darren’s mother, paediatrician Dr May Ng, said: “Darren was born deaf but has never let his disability stop him from doing anything. After scoring 92% in his GCSE Maths exam, he is taking GCSE Further Maths later this year.
“We have not looked back since he joined Merchant Taylors’ as the school has nurtured him through the years with fantastic teachers along the way. He surprised us by saying he wants to be a paediatrician like me when he’s older, which is great to hear, and I’m sure he can achieve whatever he sets his mind to.”
Darren appeared on BBC North West Tonight talking to David Guest about his achievements:
Credit: BBC North West Tonight
The School was shortlisted in recognition of the amazing work it does in our local community through the Merchants in the Community Project and School-wide fundraisers led by the School Council.
r with all the junior school boys, Tom came to the library where all year 7 boys were looking forward to meeting a real live author. He told them how important magazines and newspapers had been when he was a reluctant reader as a teenager. He loved reading match reports, which then inspired him to try books. He was 21 before he did A-Levels, then became a mature student at Reading University. He finds celebrity magazines essential when he is researching the background to his stories, as they shed light on footballers’ lifestyles. He also does research by travelling to the countries where his books are set, and by reading biographies.
publishers for editing and typesetting. Book covers are not selected by the author. His latest book, D-Day Dog, out in May, originated in the true story of German Shepherd dogs being parachuted into Europe, to sniff out soldiers who were hiding, and to detect mines. They were trained to detect the differences in smell of the uniforms of American, German and British soldiers. He is working on another Second World War book about German children who were rescued from a concentration camp and sent to Windermere.
n war, inspired some excellent ideas. The groups set their ideas in the Vietnam War, where dogs were used as lookouts, the English Civil War, using King Charles spaniels as metaphors for the character of the King, cats bringing food to a besieged town, and dogs being trained to work with the military police. The Year 10 group set their story in an African war. Tom was very impressed by the standard of the writing, and told the boys to turn their good ideas into stories.
