Idk, I’m not an educator, but maybe we need to rethink the entire idea of how kids progress through curricula and courses. On one hand putting each kid onto a track (Academic/Applied etc.) sets up expectations for them to go a certain way in their career and it’s not entirely fair. On another, having no streams will overall reduce success because bright student won’t need to work as hard to get by, and a one-size-fits-all approach will have many kids with different learning styles fall through the cracks.

If I were to come up with a design, it would be accelerated, normal and extension programs. We should dispel to some extent the notion that all kids should graduate at the same age and those who advance faster are necessarily better than those who graduate later. Yes these kids may be naturally brighter but there are also many upbringing factors that really didn’t give them a fair shot. Kids should be allowed to retry grades until they “get it” rather than pushed along regardless of their understanding of things, have “accelerated” programs so that kids who were slow to understand at first have the motivation to recap one grade’s material and the next, and extension programs to teach applications of subjects in preparation for university.

To boil down my suggestion, it’s to base the grade levels off of maturity of their understanding, rather than age.