I think kids vary a lot, especially these kids: but I doubt mine has the self-discipline to work at hard things in a sustatined way without some teacher input.
Kids do surprise. I would have said the same about my son (he is older than your son though, at 7yo). He goes to school 3 days a week (he has private math and science instruction and lots of OT on the other 2 days). He brings in his Math Olympiad book (we have tonnes of local books supporting this, with explanation bubbles) on one of the 2 days when he has a teacher's aide assigned in school. On the other day, he does HeyMath (he brings in his own netbook). He receives no help from the teacher when he stumbles. When he does (and so far it's rare), he brings it home so we can work on it together. She generates quizzes from the system (not sure how often) to keep tab of what he's learnt. Does he feel isolated from his classmates during the lesson? Actually he loves it, because he can see what they're doing and he shudders at the thought! Maybe this is what's lending him some discipline
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This arrangement has worked out surprisingly well. The school condones this, but a lot of credit rests with his school teacher, ie, it may not be the same in the following school year. The level of work given by his teacher kept getting revised upwards throughout the year (it's been 7.5 mths since Jan) as she got to know him better. It's with his non-accelerated and writing-related work that he has problems with.
