Hi all! I have a question about my DD9. She early-entranced K (barely missed cutoff) and then skipped a grade. She's now in 5th grade and doing great. She has awesome friends and we thought, until the other day, that the academic fit was good and that, while the material was still easy, it included some new things. But, the other day she was telling me how boring the work was, save for a math RTI class she does everyday for 30 minutes. She says that the math in RTI is at the right level for her and that it's fun. Looking at the work -- which is definitely at the right level for her (challenging but not frustrating, still does very well on it without help), it looks just like our DS's 7th grade math curriculum.
So, anyway, DD will be switching to a private school starting in 6th grade. They claim to have a harder curriculum, but when DS12 switched to go to school there last year, he had no problems adjusting to the new curriculum and it didn't seem further advanced than what he was getting in public school (and he's not HG+ like DD). And, like I said, the RTI math DD is getting and doing well on and liking is what my DS is doing in 7th grade in this school.
So, we were thinking of asking the new school if they could give her the end-of-6th-grade math assessment that they give to all the 6th graders to decide their 7-12th grade math track, but to give it to her now so that we can see if she should just do regular 6th grade math or if she should accelerate in math. The downfall to this is that 1) she will be a new student and this would make her stand out as "different" since she would be the only one doing something different for math, 2) the new school uses Saxon math and up until now she has been "taught" using Everyday Math so she might have some adjustments, and 3) she will be, by far, the youngest in her class since this is a school that favors redshirting any kids with summer birthdays, so they may have a philosophical issue with her moving further ahead (although they've never expressed any disapproval of current age/grade situation; they may not have even noticed yet).
Does anyone have thoughts on whether we should just let her slide since she'll be switching curriculums and will be the new kid in class or whether we should request an assessment?
Also, I've read that Saxon math, while great for a lot of kids, can be frustrating for highly gifted kiddos. In your experience, is this something we should consider?
BTW: We asked DD about whether she would want to accelerate in math or just blend in as a new student, and she's really on the fence. She wants both!
