Thanks for your reply, CFK, discouraging though it is :-) I do hear what you say, but at a high level I just don't see that there's any alternative. Acceleration might have been a partial solution last year, but he now really is* (at least in what he knows, although not always in how well he problem-solves) well beyond any class in the school, so there's nowhere to send him. (He maybe has enough left to learn in the syllabus for exams people here take at 16 to keep him busy for this coming year, provided he spends most of his time on hard problems.)
It may be that the message I should take away is that we're trying to do something hard here, and if it doesn't work we shouldn't beat ourselves up. Fallback should be that he does something somehow worthwhile in that time, he's not miserable, and we do maths at home, I suppose!
*in maths I mean! Another part of the story is that his writing is, I think, age-appropriate on a good day.
Last edited by ColinsMum; 08/11/10 07:24 AM.
