Hi everyone,

My husband and I have two kids who attend a bilingual school. Our eldest son (age 7, grade 2) is quite fluent at this point and has been feeling underchallenged in both languages this year. He could read English before he started pre-school and is advanced in maths as well. Our younger son is in the kindergarten, which is 80% French and has a big focus on motor skill development. Right now it's a good fit for him, and he reads at home with me.

We'd tried to work out an arrangement for some type of differention for the 7 year old child and hadn't gotten anywhere, bar a grade 3 phonics book in place of the second grade one. This book isn't a challenge for him. We gave up and then my husband discovered a near-ish school that does placement tests and lets kids work at whatever level they're ready for. I visited the school and it seems like a cool place. It goes to grade 6. Then we found a similar school that goes from grade 6 to grade 12, which is also nearby. We applied for next year.

So out the blue today, we got an e-mail from the current school offering to let our older child skip grade 3 next year, and now we have to make a decision.

The new school is private but is half the cost of the other one, BUT it's English only and our younger son probably needs at least two years in the bilingual school to really pick up the language. He's only had one. The schools are in opposite directions and so having one in one school and one in the other would be a big pain.

I was hoping some of you might be willing to share your experiences with grade skipping. I've read a lot of the posts here and people have made some good points. I have some specific points I was hoping people might have insight on:

* What was the most challenging aspect of a grade skip?

* Was one grade skip enough for your kids? Our eldest is already working on grade 5 maths at home and his I think his reading is at least at a grade 4 level. The new school will let him do 6th (or 7th) grade math in 3rd grade.

* What about the socialization thing? I honestly don't think a one-year skip is a big deal, but I'd like to hear from others who have been there themselves or whose kids are there.

The bilingual thing is such a complication!

Any advice and/or insight would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Val

P.S. After reading a lot of the posts here, I'm very well aware that this is a good problem to have! :>)