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[quote=Anonymous]Here's the scenario:

DS started at a new preschool ~6 weeks ago, 3 years old, almost 4 (end of September). Put into a class with other 3-4 year olds, most within 6 months of his birthday. Preschool is moving this class "up" to the "Pre-K" class in groups and doesn't plan to move DC until January, making him the last to be "promoted" into the Pre-K class. They didn't really share or talk with us about this plan. So he will be the oldest in his preschool class for ~ 4 months. Then he'll be in the Pre-K class with the children he started in a class with in July again until he starts K next fall. He seems to be mostly in line with other children his age in terms of emotional, social, motor development. Although compared to an older child in his peer group (i.e. a child who turned 4 last October), he's probably behind them. He doesn't like coloring, writing, drawing or cutting, but he's ok at managing emotions and social interactions (although it's a daily struggle). He enjoys being read to, but hasn't shown interest/inclination to read on his own. All age-appropriate and nothing we're worried about. He is a big kid (85th percentile height and weight) so appears to be older than he is. He is already the same size or bigger than many kindergartners.

FYI, this is a full-day program, and the summer is more like "camp" with water activities, theme weeks, etc.

My concerns:
a)all of his peers that he just met effectively leaving him behind, meaning he has to learn yet another group of children, many/most of whom will know each other from the last class; he is just barely getting to know the names of the children in his current class, 
b) he will not be in the pre-K prep curriculum for most of the year before he starts K 
c) he will be the oldest in his class until January, so he can't learn from the "older children" as much
d) lots of transitions in a short period: new preschool in July, new peers in September, new teacher in January vs new preschool in July, new teacher/class in September, and then stay there until he "graduates" to K
e) being the youngest in his "class," I worry about him being at a disadvantage already, but we don't currently have plans to "redshirt" him. We are in Virginia where the cut-off is 5 by Sep 30. We will re-evaluate this over the coming year and do the best thing for him, but we don't intend to hold him "back" right now.
 
However, I can see some advantage to him staying in a class with the same teachers, especially since he just started at the school this summer. That said, I haven't been terribly impressed by these teachers. I don't know which class they would put him in, so I don't know if the next teachers will be better/same/worst. I can also see it being good to know the younger kids in case we DO decide to delay K start next year.

So would you make a big deal about this, just try to have a conversation with the director about their thinking, or let it go? I haven't talked to DS about it yet, because he has finally just seemed to make the transition to school. In an ideal world we would have started at this new preschool in September, but life circumstances dictated we start in the summer instead.[/quote]

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