Originally Posted by AvoCado
At that age, yeah, I just decided not to advocate. But DD went straight into year 1, thank goodness her birthday meant none of that year 0 business smile School was new enough an experience, she sort of liked just doing 'stuff' at that age, playing with friends was fun, and it wasn't until about year 3, year 4, that she was undeniably extremely ahead of everyone else. And it seems to be around age 9 (year 5) that both my kids eventually realize that school is too slow/boring. Before that, they love it!
Having said that, I WISH we'd skipped year 2. They say the earlier you skip, the better, and year 2 teachers always seem bad, why is that? smile But the Catch-22 is that at that age, DD was only about a year ahead of the standards, I would have been laughed out of the office if I'd asked for a skip. Even now (year 4) that she's crept up to be around 4 years ahead, school is only slightly less dubious about skipping. Perhaps in another couple of years when she's 6 years ahead, they'll consider it!
I honestly think schools only talk in their language, which is achievement testing in literacy and numeracy. Until those PATs start to look alarming, the school has no idea about or interest in what you mean by 99.8th percentile

My 8 year old goes into year 5 next year so we will see. I think it was about form 1 [year 7] that I realised that not only was school horrible but it wasn't teaching me much either. I left as soon as I turned 15 - ten years torture was enough. Year two was a waste of time for ds8 who went straight into year 1 so I can't see it being much use to ds6 who did 3 terms in year zero. He is not as advanced as he could be in maths but he is better at word problems so I suspect he will do better when it becomes more abstract. He knows his facts but they are not his favourite thing and when he gets bored he guesses or answers wrong on purpose.


Last edited by puffin; 11/15/15 01:34 AM.