BRIGHT young thing Sharon Daniel may be one of the country’s cleverest children — but she can hardly contain her excitement at being on TV when she competes for the title Child Genius 2014.

The 12-year-old from Westhoughton will be appearing on Channel 4’s Child Genius programme tomorrow.

The Bolton School pupil is one of just 20 youngsters chosen from thousands of bright children to compete for the title.

Sharon said: “I think everyone has their own talents, like some people are good at sports or music, but I think I’m academically gifted.

“I’m very excited at being on television. My friends will definitely be looking out for me on the show to see how I get on.

“It was extremely exciting being filmed for the show, as I knew it would be on the TV and I could show off what I can do on an intelligence-based show.”

The competition has been organised with British Mensa and the series, which starts tomorrow, will document the lives of the children and their families as they progress from one round to the next.

The series is set to reveal the highs and lows of being Britain’s brightest seven to 12-year-olds.

Sharon has already proved herself to be an exceptionally gifted competitive chess player, despite only taking up the game four years ago.

She has also played internationally for the England U11s Team.

In the past academic year, she has competed in the World Youth Chess Championships, she has been described as one of the best British female players in her category and was crowned the U11 English Youth Chess Champion 2013.

Sharon said: “I would like to contribute to the field of medical science, particularly cranial neuroscience.”

In the first stage of the competition the children will face two gruelling rounds —advanced maths, in which questions are beyond an adult's capability; and memory recall, in which they have to memorise and then mentally navigate four zones of the London Underground map, or 170 stations.

Sharon’s headmistress at Bolton School, Sue Hincks, said: “Sharon is a very hard working and intelligent girl and we have seen how competitive she can be when she plays chess.

“We look forward to watching her take on a different kind of competition in the programme and wish her the best of luck.”

The first episode of the four-part series will be on Channel 4 at 9pm.