They are sparky, enthusiastic and imaginative, yet have never seen the inside of a school. David Robson meets the ‘home-eds’

How many A* GCSEs would Chung Chung Stockman achieve if she were receiving a conventional education? Twelve? Fifteen?

Chung Chung is 10, going on 11, going on 18, one of those sweetly precocious children who make your heart dance with their wide-eyed curiosity about the world.

"I’ve got a theory," she tells me, "but I don’t think you’ll understand it." Cue a fascinating, breathless discourse on the nature of education.

She’s right: I don’t understand her theory. It’s too idiosyncratic. But I know a clever cookie when I see one.

Hua Hua, her eight-year-old brother, is no slouch either. My eye strays to the bookshelves of the converted warehouse in Rotherhithe where they live, opposite a film studio. Good grief, Hua Hua isn’t reading Proust, is he?

Child’s play: the delightfully confident Hua Hua

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