UK School Provision

[thenamegame1]

I am from the UK but we are currently in Australia. At some point I would love to return to the UK again, even if temporarily, but am wondering what we would be looking at in terms of school provision for my children.

My eldest child, DD6 was tested with the WISC as having an IQ of 150, with WIAT tests 160 for English and 158 for Maths. Based on this and ability she was accelerated a year at school. The school system here has provisions (and funding!) in place for children like this and we have found the system very flexible thus far.
For example, even though DD has been accelerated she has an 'independent learning plan' where she is currently working on the Year 4 syllabus in some areas, self interest projects as well as social and emotional support, pairing her with a mentor and like minded peers. The emotional support has been paramount as she has some asynchronous development and has found it hard to fit in at school.

Are we likely to receive any of this support in the UK? Worryingly, I read that any support of G&T was dropped in 2011, and even then it was focused purely on academic high achievers, rather than identifying and supporting potential? I'm really interested to hear of anyone else's experience with this issue and how it was supported by your school in the UK? Or would we be destined for homeschooling?!

Thank you!

UK state schools do support differentiation within the classroom but aren't very supportive of acceleration and funds can be quite limited for other support.

Your best bet would be an academically selective independent school. The most academic schools as standard operate at least 1 year ahead of the national curriculum and some then further differentiate work for the most able within the cohort.

My advice: Do not come back to the UK.

I don't know when you were last here, but everything has deteriorated since 2009.

My DS is really bright (for example, when he was in year 6 he got a gold award in the maths challenge, putting him in the top 0.1% of children entering). He's at a normal state secondary, albeit one with a very good local reputation, and he's doing fine and is given differentiated work etc.

You will find it almost impossible to get adequate acceleration for a child of that ability in UK schools. The G&T programme was binned by 2011, UK teachers are not trained in gifted provision, most schools no longer have a G&T coordinator and are in general extremely anti-acceleration. The UK education system is among the most rigid in the world and your daughter is unlikely to be given the flexibility she needs.
Private/selective schools do quite well for the kids with index scores in the 130-140 range but in my experience do not meet the needs of children with index scores in 145+ range, particularly if asynchronous.