My experiences with 'gifted' programmes:

In primary school:
1st 6 years- no gifted programme, instead, you did whatever grade's work you were up to, whether you were working ahead or behind of yourself. (I did year 7 english about 3 times, altogether.)
Year 7- PEAC. Not sure what it's meant to stand for, but it involved having to go to a different school for 2 mornings a week for fun and interesting courses, often highschool-level ones.

Lower Highschool:
Some classes were 'streamed' - based on previous scores, you were put into 'advanced' or 'regular' classes. Of course, if the teacher didn't like you, you wouldn't get into the 'advanced' classes, thus restricting your choices later on, and causing much boredom. Fortunately, I did advanced courses wherever they were offered.
Also, 'achievers' (students who got 75% As, no Ds or Fs, and no Cs on maths, science, english, social studies or languages) got to go on excursions every now and again.

Upper Highschool:
No 'streaming', but because you choose all your classes, there are some which only 'advanced' lower school students picked, such as English Literature.