Thanks everyone, lots of interesting thoughts there. A few responses:
- online courses: yes, it's great to be facing this now rather than a few decades ago. I'm not convinced that the Coursera etc. model is that great for maths, but at least it's an alternative to/supplement for books that gives greater choice.
- applications: yes, he's already doing some of this and will I'm sure do more.
- maths circles: yes, will watch out for such opportunities.
- talk to people at local university, check.
- boarding schools that go above and beyond; yes, there are some, and yes we're seriously considering them. The cost is a problem, and we're not sure whether sending DS away from two very mathy parents to get better maths at school makes sense; we'll see.
- credit: my only concern is, as I said, that university courses here are year-based not credit-based. If you turned up as a first year student having already mastered half the material in the first year, but not the other half, that would be quite a hard problem for the university to deal with. There are humans in the process, though, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it too much. And of course one can skip lectures :-)
- Terry Tao. Yes, I have read with great interest about his education. But do note that his mother gave up work to facilitate that solution. I can't do that and have him stay at his current school, and doing it and moving him into state education would be a backward step in all kinds of ways. Also, one article I read showed his timetable in one of those years, and he was actually getting a really weird mixture of whatever fitted - not a balanced education at all! Kudos to him, his parents and teachers for making it work for him, but it did have its downside.
Last edited by ColinsMum; 07/06/13 11:09 PM.
