You may already be familiar with this, but one strategy that is sometimes used with students who are faced with more repetitition than needed is called "most difficult first". The idea is that the student can choose to do the four most difficult problems first. If they do them correctly, they are excused from the other practice problems and allowed to move to a learning activity that is of more interest to them. It is intended to be a short term strategy, not a replacement for appropriate instruction, and could be a good short term solution. Perhaps you could approach it with the school staff by suggesting it as an interim strategy while they are finishing their assessment ("I really appreciate the thorough job you are doing assessing my child, I recently came across a strategy that I thought might tide him over until we have the information we need to adjust his instruction....") It's mentioned in Susan Weinbrenner's book "Teaching Gifted Children in the Regular Classroom".
You could perhaps pitch it to school as a way to hold your son accountable for completing work with effort and accuracy, since he would have some motivation to tune in completely to do those four problems accurately. You might also point out that if he can do the work and move onto learning activities that are personally motivating, he will be less likely to talk and distract others.
If you can get school to agree, this will also open up a way to address the concerns you have re: your son's attitude. He is more likely to accept having to "do the dishes" (nice analogy DAD22
) if he is faced with a sinkful than if he is faced with an entire kitchen full, if you know what I mean. It sounds to me like you are feeling some ambivalence because you don't like his attitude, but you actually agree with his assessment of the work. I always find it hard to enforce expectations if I am more in agreement with the person rebelling against them than with the person providing them
......
