express/grammar streams

[Peapodlovescuddles]

Just wondering if anyone has any experiance of these? In our area they're reorganising secondary education and while it won't effect DS1 (15) or dd1 (13) my younger 3 will almost certainly be affected by it, I have been told that the middle two would probably qualify for an 'express' stream (youngest is too young to tell) where they take some GCSEs in y9 and move onto as levels in y10, can anyone enlighten me as to what they'll do in sixth form? what are the advantages to this? What questions should I be asking?

Streuth - does this mean they get two gap years before going on to university? It is fairly common for the brightest in selective schools to do some GCSEs a year early (Y10) but I hadn't heard of them being taken in Y9 when some of the year will still only be 13.

dd took maths gcse a yr early,so has started as maths in yr 11.
I suppose it would mean they can end up with more Alevels at the end.

I know, it does seem ridiculously early and a bit overly keen but I don't know if it will give them an edge, or alternatively if they'll cope, I mean I suppose they're reasonably bright but not 2 yrs ahead of their peers...
Ds and dd are at a private school atm but I was wondering if this would be a good opportunity or not. I think I'm quickly going off it, they're more likely to get better grades at the right age and there seem to be no advantages to it...
Gawd don't you just hate choosing schools!!!!!

We had a system like this at my school when I was a teen. One of my friends was accelerated taking his o levels in year 10 and alevels in the lower 6th. Problem was he didn't get quite high enough grades for medical school (as he wanted to be a doctor) and when he took them again at the right age and got good enough grades, the universities would not accept him onto a medical degree as they were retakes. He had to take his first degree in anatomy and then start in medical school all over again three years later.

Not sure what the system is like now but a cautionary tale.

Not really sure what the benefit of extra a'levels is anyway?