Hi newtothis,
It all depends on your child. There's no magic answer. If your kids are like mine, you'll have to try a number of things and see what's right for your child.
I will say that I have two girls one HG and one HG+. DDHG+ loves to learn and wouldn't think of homework as work at all if it is new and interesting to her. But,there's no way she would do 2 hours of repetitive drills or work she has already mastered. Nor would I think it is appropriate for the school to ask this of her.
DDHG is not as interested in school work. We let her kind of do her own thing and follow her interests. Both girls are easily operating at 2 years above school grade level or more and pick up concepts so easily. So based on my experience with my HG+ kids, I wouldn't be concerned at all if the curriculum is 2 or more years above grade level, in fact I would think it's a good thing. You could always remove your child if it's not a good fit.
My biggest concern is having a child sit at school for 5 1/2 hours being exposed to material they have already mastered.
That's a long time to be bored.
So the short is, my only goal is to have the kids be happy. So we've asked ourselves, what do they know already? Are they sitting around for 5 whole hours not learning much or anything new? If that's true, does that make them happy or unhappy? What would be the point of sending a kid to school for 5 1/2 hours to learn nothing. We actually had an out of level achievement test administered to our oldest daughter. She scored in the 99th percentile for her grade in every subject. and a minimum of 2 years above grade level across the board. That made us question her grade placement. Luckily the school has responded well and provided her additional challenges so we can say, okay, she is learning on some level and she is happy right now. DD5 had mastered kindergarten goals before she even stepped in the door the first day. She is not happy. The school is working with us currently to help her as well. In both cases we asked them: What is she expected to know to graduate from her current grade and does she know it already? To be fair, we paid to have the achievement test done privately because the school didn't know the answer to that question and I felt it should be our responsibility to provide that info, but some would have asked the school to do it.
You mentioned you had a really angry frustrated kid. Was that from lack of academic challenge or something else?
I do think a child can have emotional issues as a result of prolonged understimulation. But is could be something else entirely. It all depends on the child and situation.
So I think the goal would be to make sure each child has an appropriate education whether they are behind the average or ahead. The question is what is considered appropriate for your child and you would probably be the best person to answer that.
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