Hi there,
Mr W ( 3y5m) put us in much the same dilemma.
We made three major changes in his daycare/schools. We notice that when he is bored and underserved, he regresses.
The last major change was from Montessori with a mixed age group where he was in the lower middle of the age range to a highly structured private school where he is now in with kids who are 4 and 5.
The change in his behavior has been very positive. He now acts like his mental age again. He is calmer and much more focused. We did have a few potty issues during the transition, too.
The key dilemma is what we do from here on. He is way ahead of his classmates intellectually - reading, doing math, speaking in full, complete sentences with full narration of his day, etc. He is a little man. But, there are a lot of gaps - which this structured program is filling in. He also needs to learn to connect with the older kids. He is happier with them because "they talk to me."
The school says he can start K at this fall if things continue to go well. But they do not offer anything after K. We'd have to move him again. We've identified several schools both public and private in our area which we will approach this fall.
Mr W sells himself. We do not go in an talk about what we want. We let the schools tell us what they do then ask questions about curriculum and placement. We then bring Mr W in and let him be himself. Then we talk about our experiences with him in relation to their curriculum and policies.
I think it was Grinity who said take things a few weeks at a time and make adjustments as needed.
Our final fallback is to home school him with the help of private tutors with the option of putting him back into school.
