What a great topic!

I think this year was almost more about what DH and I learned.

First, we learned that there's a slippery slope to acceleration... that once you make the stance and say "you have a right to learn new things" that you have to keep up.

For us, that meant a rather unnerving experience mid year where she basically told us that she was STILL bored (and also caused my first post here, whine... er, worrying about it). So we had to break another "rule" (when you start something, you should finish it) and switched up a bunch of her classes for the third term. She's doing much better, learning more, and stepping up.

We also switched up her math curriculum, not because it needed to be harder, but because it needed to be different. She told us herself that she didn't think she was really learning anything and was feeling behind. The new place assessed her and found that she was way behind. "I never learned that" was her response to everything they presented her with (see number three below).

Second, we learned that advocacy never ends. Even at the MOST flexible "school" ever, we still needed to meet with them to make sure they were ready and willing to accommodate a 11 year old 8/9th grader next year. When none of your child's needs are getting met it's easy to advocate, but when you're already getting flexibility and accommodation it's hard to ask for more. They were awesome about it and DD is already excited about next year.

Third, we learned to decode a bit more of DDs language for discussing her education. It turns out that her way of expressing
a) this learning style does not work for me,
b) I was presented with this but haven't mastered it to my satisfaction, and
c) yeah we covered this but didn't go deep enough to make me happy

is "I never learned that!" or "No one ever taught me that!"

Hence her feedback in math. Of course she had learned it, but she wasn't confident or comfortable with it. Anxiety strikes again. But her new math has been a big hit and she's "catching up" (which is really just getting more confident and internalizing/mastering things for the first time).

"I already know that" on the other hand actually means "I already know that" and "I'm bored" (which we used to think meant "I'm lazy and don't want to do this") actually means "I'm bored, challenge me."

Overall a great great year, school-wise. Confirmation that all our rule-breaking, taking the route "less traveled by," and real differentiation (in which I mean choosing to educate differently) are working for her.

Of course at the same time we have all the usual pre-teen issues -- hormones and drama, rule breaking and pushing boundaries, isolating herself from us and clinging tightly at the same time.