DS's school has all that. [Well, I suppose I don't know how well the general maths is differentiated as DS always has his own; and I don't think they ever use worksheets in English so the self-paced thing doesn't really apply; in classes of 16 they do a lot of writing, reading and discussion and seem to differentiate by outcome effectively.] Better, in fact: more than an hour of free time (with clubs available, or you can - sometimes only on certain days to manage demand - go to the art or DT room or library or practise an instrument or play outside or play snooker in the games room or use a computer or just hang out), and no written homework ever. Also, sports every day, which I wasn't sure would suit my DS from a very unsporttalented family, but given a variety of games and good tuition and sensible grouping, he likes that too.
School runs from 830am to 6pm (3pm for the under-8s), which is how there's room for all this, but the day is the opposite of the frenetic pattern most of you describe, and it means there's no need for separate after school care even though we both work full time. There are also late clubs till 8pm; if he stays for one, he has supper at school.
This is not a gifted school, indeed the school is not deliberately selective at entry, though children joining later do have to do an entry assessment. It's a private school, probably the most expensive for the age group in the city, so you do obviously get a very skewed SES balance, which, like it or not, also skews the achievement levels. And, though I don't know instances where a child has been asked to leave, in principle they don't have to handle behaviour problems or indeed any special educational needs beyond where they choose to, which must make their task easier. The high staff-student ratio surely helps more. There are no state gifted schools, or any official provision for GT, in this country. There are selective private schools, including some we could have sent DS to - but from what I know of them, none would have been anything like a good a choice as this one. "Selective" tends to go with "high homework load, hot house", here too. I suspect that there is a good deal of self-selection of wealthy (we're at the poor end in this context!) gifted children to the school. In practice, even unskipped and in this context, what I observe is that DS seems to have enough company in his non-strength areas, just about. He would like to have company in his strength areas, which he doesn't, and there are certainly areas (languages come to mind) where he could be going a lot faster than he is - he hasn't really had the chance to turn those into strengths, or not. But overall, he's happy and we're happy.
Yes, I thank my lucky stars every day.
Last edited by ColinsMum; 09/24/13 01:38 AM. Reason: added para on GT
