Oi! School is absolutely nuts! My daughter is in Kindergarten and they expect so much! My daughter's teacher has to deal with kids that can handle basic arithmetic... and a student or two that barely knows the alphabet! How do you do that?!
We received one homework assignment and I actually commented on it being poorly formed... for Kindergartners, expecting them to pull critical thinking skills out of their rumps, instead of it being stepped out for them. I get frustrated having to figure out if my daughter should or shouldn't be able to do some of this stuff. I'm all for pushing children, but the level expected... and my daughter's stubbornness (despite being very bright), just create serious first world problems.
The best advice is that advice can be absolutely worthless as so many children react in so many different ways to so many different methods of parenting. The best thing to say is "Yeah... children... oi!"
Dude, this is the Internet.