It is almost always a bad idea to separate kids by ability before about grade 11.

This may not apply to extreme ends of the ability spectrum but most kids in gifted classes are not in fact, gifted. They are well connected.

” most kids in gifted classes are not in fact, gifted. They are well connected”

Not in the TDSB (though in the predecessor boards this may have been true at one time).

Students must score at the 99th percentile on the WISC-IV (Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children fourth revision, with Canadian norms).

That’s the top 1% in terms of measured cognitive ability—“gifted” by any definition accepted in psycho-education circles.

FYI, here’s a description of my elementary school experience.

Reading TDSBNW posting, I started thinking about how my teachers could teach effectively all 35 of us the same lesson at the same time.

It is not the best way, it is not the only way but it is something that has worked for all the students in a class of 35, taught by teacher who was not superwoman in 4 to 5 hours a day 6 days a week for a total of only 24 to 26 hours a week for grades 1 to 4.

- All the parents knew that they weren’t supposed to teach their children how to read or print before the start of grade 1 so that
a) they would not get bored and misbehave because they already knew how to read and
b) they would learn correct cursive letter formation and fluency from their teacher without printing habits interfering with the shape of the cursive letters

- Parents had a choice based on personal preference and their own assessment of their child’s ability to follow rules and pay attention whether to send their child to school in grade 1 at
6 or at 7 years of age.

- Discipline during class time was expected by both parents and students and strictly
enforced. A student was expected to sit at their desk without standing or wandering around the class, without talking or making noises for whole duration of a class (50 min).
You were disturbing the class? A note got sent home to the parent that day to be returned signed off.
Several such notes in a row? The parent was called to come to school and have a discussion with the teacher on how to get their child to behave.
Trust me, you did not want the teacher to send notes home!
You wouldn’t hear the end of it for days.

- As students, we were given feedback and assesed every day.
We had short tests a few times a week, the teacher would call all of us in turn to answer or to write the answers on the blackboard,
regardless of whether or not we raised our hand.

Based on tests and class responses we got 2 to 4 marks a week in each subject; marks which
were sent home to the parents.

- Homework was given every day to be returned the next day.
Homework was always based only on what has been studied at school.
No vague project work, no making bridges or houses out of craft stuff and say is a science project, no untaught material to be figured out by the student alone under the disguise of homework.
The teacher would always check and discuss the homework first, at the start of each class.

- The teacher’s materials were the textbooks which were followed in their entirety.
We had no workbooks. The exercises were part of the textbooks and we had to copy them from
the textbook to our notebooks first and then do them in our notebooks. 
Or, the teacher would write additional exercises or questions on the blackboard for us to copy in our notebooks and then solve.
The only teaching material other than the textbooks was the “alphabet box” used in grade 1 to teach reading and spelling. This “alphabet box” is the same as the Montessori alphabet box.

The textbooks were provided by the school and had to be returned back to the school at the end of the year.
The student’s notebooks and the “alphabet box” were purchased by the parents.
( NOTE: So why do we need expensive materials if we have blackboards and noteboooks? )
We took home with us our textbooks and notebooks every day to be able to do the homework.
A parent could tell at any time what we were working on.

- Our elementary teachers were specifically trained to teach only grade 1 to 4 by being taught
a) how to teach reading - how to follow the reading textbook in which sounds were sequentially presented
b) how to teach handwriting - how to teach student how to hold a pen correctly, how to teach
writing the shape of each letter and how to teach the linking of the letters in cursive writing
c) how to teach basic math - how to teach addition, subtraction, the multiplication tables, the multiplication and the long division algorithms.

At the end of grade 4 everybody and I mean everybody knew how to read, write fluently (cursive only), spell and do basic math: any addition and subtraction of integer numbers, any multiplication of integer numbers, any division of integer numbers.

- An elementary teacher for grade 1 to 4 would teach the very same class of students (containing the same students) for all the years from grade 1 to grade 4.

- From grade 5 onwards, all my teachers were what are called here “specialists”.
That is teachers teaching grade 5 and up had a batchelor degree in the subject they were
teaching. My math teacher had a batchelor in math, my biology teacher had a batchelor in
biology, my phys-ed teacher had a bachelor in physical education and so on and so forth.

For anyone interested in reading about other education systems, try

“Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French” by Jean-Benoit Nadeau

is a realistic, down-to-earth book about the French history, institutions and culture written from the perspective of two canadians.

It is also a very entertaining book.