Today he will do the second maths paper and begin his Irish exam in hospital.

The move comes after concerns were raised about the second maths paper by students, parents and teachers.

After several relatively painless papers last week, the examiners decided to get tough yesterday with the second maths exams.

We had all anticipated that the second maths paper would be difficult, as the first one had been quite nice.

But perhaps, just as English splits into language and literature GCSEs, there is a place for a second maths GCSE course.