My DD's middle grade experiences were mostly non-enriched, but the one bright spot was/is the use of a language arts enrichment ELECTIVE based upon the inquiry-based Great Books program.
It was truly transformative in the hands of a masterful teacher who understands gifted students well.
The math was just acceleration into high school topics. Science and social studies were not really differentiated.
My own middle school GT program, back in the golden era (1970's) was amazing.
- differentiated (tracked) sections in the core subjects (science, math, English, Social Studies-- though the latter, I have my doubts)
- electives, electives, electives for EVERYONE, not just GT, and they were COOL-- cartography, legal process and laws re: juveniles in the state, anthropology, accounting, psychology, etc.
- special electives (of choice) JUST for GT, which is how I learned Mendelian genetics well enough to help my friends through that class in, er, college...analyzed dramatic works saw plays at a professional and internationally renowned theater, and studied ornithology, French cuisine and ASL.
Honestly, I have no idea HOW my junior high managed it. But it was sure amazing.
At a SECOND junior high school, the options were good, (tracking again, but no real math acceleration... though I do know how to hand crank a square root, old school-- and hey, is THAT ever a skill I've never used since...) but more limited in scope. This school year was set up on a 3-1-3 school year, and the "mini-term" was in January. The mini-term is where ALL electives happened, and this included the GT offerings, which weren't specifically limited enrollment, but clearly some things are not going to draw heavily on anyone else. Things like "Speed Reading" and "Game theory." I liked certain things about that immersion environment (you took 3 "electives" during the miniterm, but only one the rest of the year, and the classes were taught in longer blocks), but the level of the undifferentiated coursework was not very good, tracking or no.
If I could choose a system, I'd pick the one that my first junior high school offered. This was NOT a huge district, nor a huge school-- the total enrollment of the school was perhaps 250 students. But teachers were encouraged to develop courses for electives in their areas of interest. There were NO grade differentiations in terms of electives, either-- so electives were more fluid in terms of placement, and this worked very well for the gifted students, who could take the "hardest" electives from 7th grade on.
