Please don't flame me as you will all probably think this is a stealth boast but I am trying to get some impartial advice?
DS2 is 5.4 and just about to go into Yr1. He is quite bright. I am not sure exactly how bright because I have nothing to compare him to (DS1 has ASD). I get the impression that he is a lot brighter than his peers but its difficult to find out without sounding like you are boasting and the other parents getting the wrong end of the stick.
He was a very early reader (short books at age 3), is good with numbers which is not in itself particularly remarkable, but what really stands out is that he has a photographic memory.
To give you an example, he is very into geography at the moment. I bought an app for the iphone/ipad (as recommended by someone on here) called stack the countries. Its basically a quiz about geography. It has questions about where countries are, their flags, capitals, various landmarks etc. As a result of playing this game, he can now place every country in the world on a map (correctly first time), name virtually all their capitals and recognise a country by its shape. He can place all US states and name their state capitals. We've been watching the Olympics and one morning the presenters were not sure what country one of the flags was from. He correctly told me it was Vietnam. He is obsessed with plate tectonics and how the continents came to form (and when). He knows all the planets and how many moons there are on each of them. He told me one morning that he'd had a dream about Shakespeare. As far as I knew they hadn't done anything about him at school so I asked him to tell me about him and he started talking about the Globe Theatre. I later found out that he'd read a book at school (self chosen) which talked about him and the Globe theatre. He'd clearly remembered it from then and had a dream about it.
I should say that none of this has been directed by us. He learnt to read by himself (totally surprised us when he started recognising words). We have basically nurtured his interests by providing reading material/games/tv programmes as they have developed.
He's about to go into yr1 at a state primary school. So far, they have been fantastic. However, I don't know whether in the longer term it is the best place for him especially as it?s a full class of 30 kids. Both me and DH work so there isn't a lot of time to teach him things and TBH I want him to have fun out of school. What (if anything) can I do to help him out? We could pay for private education, but we had thought about potentially doing it at secondary level. Now I'm wondering if its leaving it too late and we are missing out years when he's eager to learn and is soaking it all up like a sponge. He would have to move schools after yr2 as there is a separate infant/junior school. Or would he get enough stimulation from a good state primary and should we save our money?
I would really appreciate views from people who have DCs similar to my DS2 and/or teachers.