Reaching out to poll the parenting community here about SSA heading into middle school, as DS10 will be entering 7th grade next year at a new school. I'm school shopping now, and am thinking through feasible pathways through HS for DS.

1 - Background

DS is globally strong, with a particular love of math, debate, commsci, and a mechanical bent. He's already grade-skipped one year, and his current teacher allows him to do mostly project-based learning that she benchmarks at +2 to +3 from grade level.

We have a local option for grade 9 entry that offers AP credits in all the STEM subjects. The question is, how best to bridge over the next two years?

Additional skips are, IMO, not advisable at this time. DS very much needs to be at his current grade-level for executive function. If his future teachers can "soft accelerate" him by providing latitude for more project-based work above level, I think I can keep him sufficiently challenged with a steady supply of advanced research materials. Social and athletic fit is excellent with peers in this age range currently.

2 - Draft plan - your input appreciated!

I'm thinking of having him enter grade 7 with a grade 9 math placement. This would allow him to begin earning HS credits in math early, get his sea legs for testing to develop study skills before it really "counts", and clear the way for AP classes in math (and sciences).

For any here who have been involved in SSA, how have you gone about this?

Potential wrench: The first choice school I'm considering only offers classes up to grade 8. However, I have university training in math, and could apply for special dispensation to teach the class to DS 1-1 in a pinch.

3 - Potential options: to be explored with prospective principal...

- School offers grade 9 class outright to DS as private tutoring on a less frequent schedule - say 1-2 hours / week (otherwise, he'd need more than 1 year of material)

- DS enrolls in AOPS online classes and contests a final assessment to meet provincial standards

- Special dispensation for independent math study at home, ditto final assessment for AOPS option

- Likely infeasible due to geographic distance between schools: DS attends prospective HS for grade 9 math

You'll notice I'm presupposing I get some flavour of what I want here.

On 2:

As you know, this is essentially what we did with our #1: 10 yo double grade skipped seventh grader with a grade 9 (algebra I) math placement. And it ended up being nearly 1:1, in an extremely small class, taught by a sympathetic university math professor who rostered exactly one class at our tiny private school, because the school couldn't otherwise offer math beyond grade eight. (And actually, that's what I did myself as a 10 yo 7th grader: HS math. But the HS was on the same campus.) It's not impossible that there is at least one other student in your preferred destination school who would benefit from someone teaching HS math.

On 3:

If you think DS can handle the greater EF challenges involved in a not-fully-independent study course, the in-school tutoring has the advantage that the school retains ownership of the process, which sometimes makes them more invested in success. And it's fully individualized, which is nice.

AOPS has the advantage of a likely higher level of rigor than off-the-shelf curricula. Especially if the in-school teacher hasn't taught HS math in a while (if ever).

At-home independent study: same EF considerations (although you can scaffold that more easily at home), and individualization advantages.

Might prospective HS be open to synchronous remote instruction? Laptop open with webcams on DS and the teacher, and the videoconferencing app of mutual agreement. Teacher offers classroom instruction per usual, checking occasionally for questions or comments from DS in the chat. DS submits assignments through their existing learning management system (which, at this point, nearly every high school in North America has). If needed, his in-person teacher can proctor exams and quizzes. Normal-quality earbuds with microphone should be sufficient to keep DS-end classroom background noise out, and keep the HS class from disturbing the local school environment. The two schools aren't in competition with each other, since it sounds like they have non-overlapping grades (and one might even be a feeder to the other), so there might be more hope of cooperation.

Thanks aeh! Re 2: yes, I thought this might ring familiar for you.

Re: options, DS' EF has come a long way in a short time. He effectively has a half-day, self-directed block of work that he carries out independently now, with materials, schedules, and tools provided from home. It's more like a collaborative off-site homeschooling arrangement than a traditional school. With structure, I don't think EF would be a limiting factor for any of these four options.

Timelines for a placement decision range from March to June 2022. Admission timelines will determine whether I can get a plan in place that involves two new schools. It's not out of the question - I like this option quite a bit! - but logistically, this has more variables outside my locus of control. The MS is not a natural feeder to the HS, so there likely wouldn't be an existing relationship between the campuses.

Perhaps, with your last suggestion on the table, I could consider other options that I'd otherwise overlook for MS within the HS' catchment. Thanks - this was super helpful!

SSA = Single subject acceleration

Great to see you, Portia!! ☺️☺️

Portia, thank you for such a thoughtful answer and, as always, your warm support! It means so much to have you to offer wisdom from the trenches.

I’m about to turn into a pumpkin. Will be back shortly with a reply. ☺️

Portia, you’ve given me a lot of helpful info about pathways through HS.

From what you’ve described, it seems like live AOPS classes might not be a good fit for DS next year. He’d have difficulty maintaining focus that late in the day, and I suspect there might be some frustration for him yet in the chat-only interface. The material and pacing seems appropriate, though; so self-paced instruction at home and a flipped class arrangement for math might be a viable option. DS is doing a blend of their prealgebra and algebra program this year.

This week, I had a lovely conversation with the program director at the preferred middle school. They seem extremely flexible and willing to allow students to accelerate, and the initial rapport was strong. Although DS won’t be formally registered until the new year, he has been assured a space. I mentioned his math acceleration, and they didn’t seem to think it would be a problem to carry on progress.

The school has agreed to port over DS’ IEP and adopt his current (successful) accommodations in full. They’ve also offered that work can have discretionary deliverables, with scope and outputs tailored to DS’ interests, without my having to ask.

All in all, a positive start.

Good luck to you, I hope this placement is as successful as it sounds!

Other than your son being young-for-grade, this dilemma sounds extremely familiar. I definitely have a thread in this forum about figuring out my son's math placement as he entered middle school. In the end it turns out that our school, while small, has an honors track for middle school, and they readily offered it to both my children. This put them in honors prealgebra for sixth and honors Alg I for high school credit, with a middle school teacher, in seventh. They weren't the only ones in their classes with that arrangement either. In fact I would almost go so far as to say that, if you are "school shopping," that a school that doesn't offer Algebra for eighth graders at all, might not be as good a fit as it seems otherwise?

And I'll also add the caveat that this level of SSA is still not an opportunity, at least for my children, to learn study skills. My 9th grader (who has since accelerated once more and now in Precalculus) was just lamenting about this recently. He longs to know what it would be like to have to study, LOL.

I guess I'd also add that if there's any chance that your son will be interested in competitive math, or a problem-solving career path, or certainly if he'd be the type to consider advanced mathematics in college, then that might raise the merits of AOPS as a flipped classroom scenario. This is actually what we did in 8th grade for Geometry. We started the year fully remote, so we just homeschooled with AOPS. When they went back to in-person, he took a study hall period to sit and do work that I assigned. So, I think that after that experience, I'd advise that prior exposure to AOPS at the Alg or even pre-Alg level, and maybe also having actual live AOPS instructors (instead of a mom who winged it with lesson prep the day before, LOL), would have made it even more successful. Just a thought.

I was quite surprised to have this level of resolution this early in the year, Portia!

It was only intended (on my end) to be a "discovery" conversation. But now, it seems we have a workable solution.

Fingers, toes, and eyes are crossed that DS doesn't make a cognitive leap in the next 7 months and obviate this...

Thanks sunnyday - that makes two of us! My standard for off-the-rack schools is that they need to somewhat work.


This is Canada, land of the lowest-common-denominator in math education. Above-grade classwork is generally verboten, sadly, which is why I'm working on such a long lead time. Moreover, provincial math has been de-streamed for 9th grade this year, which is excellent from an access perspective, and perhaps actually supportive of SSA to help outliers.

But yes, in principle - agreed.


Gotcha. The EF piece drives an unabashed study skills hothousing program at home for us. If I can occupy DS' brain for 20 mins / day with math and have him progress one year for each the next two years in math in school, this box is checked.

I suspect 20 minutes might be massively overshooting this. But what can I say? I'm an optimist.


Point well taken!

I have a tendency to meld a hodgepodge of content for DS for math - he needs some basic skills and automaticity, some problem solving, some proofs, and some interdisciplinary application.

Re: lateral stretches - yes! I have my eye on AOPS counting + number theory program this year if DS runs through the existing material faster than I'd expected, as well as a grade 11 physics text.

For competitions + Olympiads - this has been a topic of discussion I've had in the DMs. DS is a slow, deep thinker who isn't overly motivated by the competitive angle of math or traditional outlets for mathy kids, like chess. Combined with his EF deficits, the format of competitions would actually (I suspect) be quite stressful for him. We tend to jump straight to the MOEMS / AMC problems in AOPS, and he can usually solve most of them in a few minutes. But there doesn't seem to be any intrinsic drive to do more of the same. *shrugs*

What I've been doing with him, instead, is watering down some first year uni linear algebra (simple stuff like Euclidean vectors, inverses, determinants, systems of linear equations), stats, introducing some philosophy / logic concepts, with an aim to teaching him some econometrics and decision theory modelling. There's a lot of fun application to be had with those topics.

He seems to like cryptography, so maybe some combinatorics next?

Truthfully, I have no idea where he's going to land career-wise. Instead, I try to feed him fun little problems or concepts from several disciplines, and see how far he can take them logically on his own steam. Then, to the extent I can, I throw the ball further afield and connect the interdisciplinary dots.

The common thread in everything is a hunger to find a generalizable solution and to automate the heck out of his process.

That does sound promising!

And to sunnyday's experiences, I'd agree that there are pluses to actual instructors versus parental winging! But other than not realizing that using a curriculum written in UK English would cause DC to miss placing into precalc in grade nine because a number of terms were different (surd vs radical, anyone?), I think DC found our low-key homeschooling left very few holes. I will say that I do wish I'd given this particular, quite math-y DC the problem-solving depth of AOPS (although the Singapore secondary syllabus was pretty strong in this area too).

And yeah, waiting to see some study skills over here, too, at least in math!

Me: "How many hours are you spending on your DE calc II class?"
DC: "One, or two when there's an exam."
Me: "Two hours a day?"
DC: "No, a week."

DC has not done a single problem set all semester, nor did we ever acquire the textbook. Average: 100+

To be clear in case I’ve caused confusion: the math we cover already is AOPS curriculum + extras supplemented based on DS’ strengths and interests. I don’t expect there will be any gaps from home instruction vs paid-instructor-led if that is the route we choose next year.

But then, we’ve homeschooled and co-schooled for pretty much all of DS’ young life, so teaching has become a de facto second job for me!

Downstream? TBD!

(And Singapore is lovely. I don’t have experience with their secondary curriculum, but DS enjoyed some of their primary program, and I would happily use it again.)

No textbook = awesome. That would go into a bacon or steak fund here. 😂

You’re much gentler than I am, aeh. I mandate effortful time on task. If he can show mastery with the hardest few problems, I give him something he’ll have to grapple with.

General musings for a general audience…

The other day, DS was a bit unsure of himself with an extra proof I made up. It prompted a discussion about striving and a clarification that he shouldn’t implicitly know how to do it, that I expect failure initially, and that it’s part of the process. Then we talked about how researchers tackle novel problems, entrepreneurs create new markets, and explorers discover new worlds. Creation is bold and intimidating.

We broached anxiety around perfectionism, and the fact that it’s okay not to know the answer immediately. He tried several approaches and failed before figuring it out.

This is why I provide extra content at home. Regardless of what he receives as instruction in school, I want him to learn to be comfortable outside his comfort zone, and that’s only going to happen if he sees what he’s capable of. I don’t want university or grad school to be the first time he encounters a challenge.

Math happens to be our particular vehicle for this because we both have strength and interest in this area. But the concept generalizes across subjects.

I am pretty sure that if I float the idea of the unspent textbook funds being reallocated to bacon or steak there will be high levels of approval from DC!

And fortunately, DC does have an AP lit class to put -some- effort into. I'm actually quite proud of DC for voluntarily choosing AP lit for this year, since the way last year shook out, DC was entering this year already with sufficient English (and math, science and history!) credits for graduation, but decided that AP lit would be more educationally beneficial than an easy elective.

And as for additional challenge in math--I could point DC in a direction, but personally I'm a bit rusty on anything any higher level at this point, and would have to re-learn it myself. It's been a long time since differential equations!

And for sure, no need for uni or post-grad to be the first time our kids experience their ZPD! BTDT.

As you know, I’m all about the incentives. 😉

DS enjoys a little taster of wine or beer occasionally with dinner (1oz - nothing crazy). Last week, he was dragging his heels on doing homework, and I threatened to take away his wine and bearnaise with his steak if it wasn’t done by the time dinner was on the table.

DS: Not the bearnaise!

Me: Oh yes.

DS: Red or white?

Me: Red.

DS: Which one?

Me: Syrah-Grenache. The one we had last week.

DS: *Gets to work*

If only schools could bribe our kiddos with their preferred currencies…mine is, fortunately, an easy mark as a meat-eating lush in training. 😂

Also - that’s great news about AP lit - I love the initiative!!

Ah, for some reason I was envisioning the kind of choice-rich environment they seem to have in urban American cities.


I'm personally much more invested in the development of soft skills than ticking academic boxes, and I find it much more challenging to facilitate, so let's be optimists together. The focus will come, I'm sure of it! But so far in my house we still have, "I have a test tomorrow, I guess I'll write down one formula on a card," "Are you sure you don't want to review? You have mentioned that logarithms are brand new to you and you've had a few challenges with them on the homework." "Eh." And this results in a 96%. Sigh. (With the other child, we have "I definitely understand the material. Wait, what do you mean I got a D? Um, maybe I will review the material briefly right before the retest. Grade is now revised to an A." Not sure if that's better or worse.)


Speaking of EF, I can see I am definitely not on the same footing that you are in terms of planning and executing, so I will absolutely defer, LOL. I similarly had all the plans for breadth and depth and application, all the hopes that my undergraduate math experiences would come together as a touchstone from which to give my son's math experiences context. But in practice, especially once middle school sucked away his energy for after-schooling and optional work...um, let's just say that, when I did tackle the role of instructor, review and relearning in tandem with my kiddo did not turn out to be the best way to guide him gently into the world of OMG WTF challenge problems. That said, I think it's fair to say your kiddo's math skills and experience of the greater world of math application will definitely continue to develop under your tutelage and in collaboration with the new school! Paid math teachers or not. Glad the new school seems like a good fit.

I see that the bearnaise was more of a non-negotiable for him, and the wine was contingent on the details. Both as they should be.

And I agree with both of you that academics per se are not as much the objective as they are the tool for learning soft skills. If conditions don't allow for learning EF through academics in the ZPD, like most school-age children do, then it's still possible to learn them through other activities. Though it is a bit aggravating for sure when school gets in the way of learning...

Have you looked at Olympiad school? Many kids use it as a supplemental education, to get accelerated material and they will work with you.