I was accelerated two years along with a peer of mine in high school. It did not work out well for us at all. Neither of us got good grades, and we were both moved back one year to retake our final exams again. The second time around, we got what is considered an 'average' grade, or just barely above what is usually considered a 'pass'.
Some of the many issues I encountered was that the school (perhaps reasonably) felt that I couldn't possibly skip out on physical exersize classes, or sex education, or any of the various things I would be missing. So they scheduled me into these classes with my own age-group, and then tried to fit the rest of my schedule in around that...
This resulted in me being placed in whatever classes I could fit in. Many times, in those classes that are set and arranged in order of ability, I was only able to be scheduled into some of the lowest sets. Some of my classes, such as chemistry, I could only attend less than half of the lessons because of catastrophic scheduling issues. In others, I was ignored by the teachers, and struggled to fit in with any peer groups.
In terms of social skills, I wasn't exactly bullied physically, just had almost nobody at all interested in talking to me aside from the person I was accelerated with - people were well-meaning and nice enough, but it's not exactly 'cool' to hang around with somebody two years younger than you around that critical time of vying for status, so I never really got into any longer conversations or made friends.
By the time I left, I pretty much considered myself somebody who was socially isolated with extremely poor social skills, and 'weird' in some kind of fundemental way. A lot like some of the other children that had learning difficulties were. It wasn't until I got to university and had a fresh start that I realised I was actually relatively socially capable in all kinds of situations, and it was mostly the school setting that had contributed to that view of myself.
I'm not entirely against this kind of thing, but done wrong, it can definately have a massively harmful effect on a child's education. While I have recovered somewhat in my professional career, by my academic results, this 'experiment' was an appaling failure. My peer at the time hasn't been so lucky as far as I can tell, and they did not manage to get into any universities at all. If this kind of thing is to be done, it needs to be done with care and constant attention on behalf of the school's staff.
In my experience with being ahead, I had to move school districts a couple times to avoid administrative resistance. It goes ok, then you get the teacher that doesn’t want you to be ahead of her son and then proceeds to teach you stuff that she already taught you a couple years before.
My parents also had plenty of free time and money which helps with the process.
To be honest, I think that the school was going through a very tough time itself.
Around that time they had an award they had previously won for being 'exceptional in physics' actually stripped from them and the country's ratings board reduced their rating.
While I don't know exactly the official reasons that those things were done, I do know that the quality of teaching in many subjects was very bad, not just for me. For example, in physics, we often had to lie to write up experiments we had not done, because there was neither equipment or time to run the experiments we were supposed to for the curriculum.
The year after this, the teacher told us that the exam board had started to get suspicious, and had demanded we include photographs of ourselves performing the experiments. So we had to mock up as best we could the experiment test setup with what broken or substituted equipment we had.
I skipped a grade in elementary school and had done calculus before high school. By the time I got to college, I decided I didn’t care for any of that and spent my extra mental energy on forming positive relationships with the people around me and couldn’t be happier. Graduated without honors with an ok gpa but have an excellent professional network and friends and family around me that care.
Wonderful. As I approach the end of my college years, I rue the fact that I didn't put myself 'out there' early enough. What kind of people you have around you might be the most important thing for young adults today.
The key to success in college is to get stellar marks AND do internships and stuff AND network, network, network. If you're lax in any of these, you could be in for struggles in your career.
I only wish this study was available to my school and, especially my mother and stepfather who declined my acceleration opportunities in the 50s (without telling me until I was working). I ended up dropping out of undergraduate work, decades of psychotherapy and a failed marriage.
In secondary school I had read through the textbooks by October and had to sustain classroom boredom the remainder of the year. Had no work habits (not needed in high school), which left me totally at sea in university where just about all my classmates had accelerated.
Want to be anonymous for this, but I skipped 7 years and while it was a lot of suffering while it was happening, alternate universe me is somewhat less likely to have ended up with a bunch of friends and somewhat more likely to have ended up a violent outlaw. So there's that.
Some of the many issues I encountered was that the school (perhaps reasonably) felt that I couldn't possibly skip out on physical exersize classes, or sex education, or any of the various things I would be missing. So they scheduled me into these classes with my own age-group, and then tried to fit the rest of my schedule in around that...
This resulted in me being placed in whatever classes I could fit in. Many times, in those classes that are set and arranged in order of ability, I was only able to be scheduled into some of the lowest sets. Some of my classes, such as chemistry, I could only attend less than half of the lessons because of catastrophic scheduling issues. In others, I was ignored by the teachers, and struggled to fit in with any peer groups.
In terms of social skills, I wasn't exactly bullied physically, just had almost nobody at all interested in talking to me aside from the person I was accelerated with - people were well-meaning and nice enough, but it's not exactly 'cool' to hang around with somebody two years younger than you around that critical time of vying for status, so I never really got into any longer conversations or made friends.
By the time I left, I pretty much considered myself somebody who was socially isolated with extremely poor social skills, and 'weird' in some kind of fundemental way. A lot like some of the other children that had learning difficulties were. It wasn't until I got to university and had a fresh start that I realised I was actually relatively socially capable in all kinds of situations, and it was mostly the school setting that had contributed to that view of myself.
I'm not entirely against this kind of thing, but done wrong, it can definately have a massively harmful effect on a child's education. While I have recovered somewhat in my professional career, by my academic results, this 'experiment' was an appaling failure. My peer at the time hasn't been so lucky as far as I can tell, and they did not manage to get into any universities at all. If this kind of thing is to be done, it needs to be done with care and constant attention on behalf of the school's staff.