There is no argument against academic acceleration beyond that it increases inequality of achievement. If the school system was about education more than childcare acceleration would be the norm for bright children and we’d have 14 year olds starting their Bachelor’s level studies in every school and 20 year olds who already had doctorates in every city of any size. Instead we waste their time, to their detriment and…
I've long wondered why education isn't just a bunch of different ladders that people can crawl at their own pace. For instance my kid is starting to read about stuff they normally only introduce in high school, but there's no way he will ever be examined on it until then (he's turning 8 in a few weeks). If someone wants to learn something, luckily these says we have the likes of Khan Academy and other internet resour…
Students of a certain grade (and thus their teachers) are currently assessed on if they have a certain competency or not. This means a student coming into Year 7 (first year of high school) is expected to know all pre-requisites and is taught only the new content. Depending on which primary school they attended, and their own learning, this can be very hit-and-miss.
Now the intent is facilitate teaching students what they need to learn, but this becomes a lot harder to measure (and to measure the teachers).
A program called "Maths Pathways" is being used in some schools, that isn't tied directly to the new curriculum but is very similar in intent.
It's a computer based program which is self-paced and focuses on progression through the different ideas rather than teaching everyone the same thing this week.