Emily gets A grade in Japanese A Level - at age 12

Emily Hogg, from Sheffield, received her results just a year after securing her AS level and two years after she picked up an A* in the subject at GCSE.

Emily, who is a Year 7 pupil at the independent Sheffield High School, said she is now concentrating on the rest of her studies but thinks she will take the rest of her A-levels at the same time as her contemporaries.

She described how she was taught how to speak the language by her Japanese mother, Megumi Hogg.

But Emily said learning to write it has been much harder.

"I go to Japan every year and I speak to my cousins in Japanese,"

"But I've had to learn to write it, which has been quite tiring.

"I didn't expect to get an A," she said.

Now Emily is concentrating on her other studies as well as enjoying art and drama at the school.

Among the other subjects she is studying are are two European languages - Spanish and German.

"They're quite different," she said.

"I think I'll be taking them at the same time as everyone else."

Emily said it was a bit early to think about exactly what she wants to do when she eventually leaves school.

But she said her current thoughts were that she wanted to go to university and she wanted to do something to do with science.

Her father, Richard, said the family was very proud of her.

"She has worked really had for this," he said.