First, we're not in the UK, we're in a small town in a Commonwealth country.
DS is 2 (last week). I suspect he will probably eventually be diagnosed with mild high-functioning ASD.
He is ahead of his peers at the Playgroup-type thing we go to every day, in that he's been speaking in sentences for a year, can read about 20-30 words if you write them out, can tell you what letters make up a word, can count (as opposed to reciting numbers in order), and do very simple addition and subtraction using lego or cuisenaire rods. He gets abstract concepts straight away and reapplies them unprompted. He can correctly identify about 100 animals and plants, and about 50 birds from birdsong. He can tell the stories of all his favourite books; loves jigsaws, lego, gear sets; he is fascinated by the idea there are different languages with words that can mean the same thing, also by music (current thing is having his mind blown that you can transpose into different keys, and that different-sized recorders play in different keys).
He is a very long way behind his peers in terms of self-regulation - he throws many tantrums a day, as well as being very behind in gross motor development (only just able to run, can't climb ladders, often forgets how to descend stairs, is extremely clumsy). He is an incredibly picky eater and often requires extreme levels of coaxing/accommodation/bribery to eat at all. He is typically in his own little world at playgroup - though he does know the names of everyone there, and tries to make friends with them, but is generally so shy and quiet that only one or two children ever actually stop long enough to notice he's talking to them. He is often unable to cope with the noise and chaos at playgroup, to the extent we have to go home for him to calm down. Once we're home he's generally fine, sitting on my knee reading a book, or playing lego or doing jigsaws with me.
Our local state schools are all ones with very big classes (60-80 kids with 2-3 teachers) and no formal sit-down instruction at all, just kids running round a big room, sitting on the floor or on beanbags, doing "independent learning" on iPads while teachers run breakout groups to do small-group teaching. The classrooms are noisy, often with pop music on in the background "to help the kids concentrate", and the teachers often don't have the training, resources or time to actually teach effectively under these conditions - they spend all their time doing crowd control. Kids who like quiet and structure tend to fail hard and early.
We have one local private prep which does very traditional teaching, has small classes and quiet classrooms. It's just ok academically (not stellar, and pretty unimaginative) and the attitudes of the parents (very capitalist right-wing) are not my cup of tea at all.
Anyone got any suggestions on where to turn? Homeschooling curricula? Job offers back in the UK for academic husband? (joking on that until we know what post-Brexit chaos looks like)...