My son, who is 11, started going to a private school in the fall of 2012. They allowed a skip from 4th into 6th at that time, and this year allowed a second skip into 8th. They also permitted three years math acceleration with the first skip (so he was a 5th grade age 6th grader taking Algebra I).
I have been very impressed with their flexibility in that regard, and it has everything to do with their amazing head of school, who gets it that gifted kids need something different.
However.
Because this school is in an area with a low population density coupled with the problems with the economy, they have to be careful about keeping the students they have. What this means is that instead of maintaining rigorous, college-prep standards (and they claim to be a rigorous, college-prep school), they target instruction and assessment to the lowest performing kids. Unfortunately I don't know how this compares to a public school, since neither of my kids has ever attended one. I'm guessing, in this area at least (affluent, semi-rural suburb of a large city), that the expectations of the classes in the public schools wouldn't be as malleable.
All of this is to say that there is no magic bullet. Even though I am a planner by nature, I've had to go year-to-year on this. This year the best thing we could come up with was the second grade skip combined with teaching math at home (which the school will give credit for--as I said, the head of school is amazing!). Next year, if I had to decide now, we'd probably go back to full time homeschooling. Educating these kids is a balancing act, and it seems to me that something is always sacrificed no matter what the placement is.
