I don't think 2 years in play based preschool is too long either. But it's too long in this center, partly due to the above mentioned issues and partly due to the fact that although they have children leaving for school mid year like my DD most children leave for school at the start of the year and their curriculum shows a bias towards this. So a child who does two years ending mid year will have joined the 4yr old group at the beginning of a school year and will done a full curriculum year with slightly older children and feel part of that group, only to then be one of very few children left behind. When the mid year kids leave they are a much smaller group leaving a much larger group behind and they leave having spent their last 6 months going over the same materials as a year ago - with the teachers finally trying to also do some extension work with them, which my DD was not prepared to engage in, having learned that "work" is not what preschool is about... Multiple school intakes based purely on age is a weird system peculiar to my state that I think is working out particularly badly at this preschool/school. Many of the mid year children have struggled with it, particularly the girls (actually most of the boys may be fine). The gifted kids who wanted/needed the (slightly) older kids socially and were as prepared as the older kids to move on at the beginning of the year are the most effected.
