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If the room above is full, what would you hope to accomplish by talking to the teacher? I don't mean that in a snarky way, I'm genuinely curious. If your child has to be in the room she's in, I think you just have to hope for the best and assume the teachers are prepared to cater to multiple development levels.

What are your specific concerns? That she will be bored? Academically ahead of the other children? That she won't have anything in common with the other kids? Personally I feel that social development is as or probably even more important than academic development at that age. So even though my daughter knew all of her letter sounds and could read before her peers, she was never bored and she still benefitted from learning from play (and this was what was most important to me). If anything, being more verbal than her peers gave her some opportunities to be a leader, which was certainly a good thing. Definitely try to figure out your specific concerns though, and if it's something the teachers can address, then by all means, discuss it with them.

@caterw: if it's her first time at school, a slightly younger class (where many kids are going to school for the first time) might be an easier transition than them throwing her in a class with a bunch of older kids who have also attended preschool before! My daughter's first preschool experience put her in a class where she was one of the very youngest (3.25, whereas some kids turned 5 as soon as the year started). In some ways, it pushed her in a positive way (socially), but in others, it set her up to be behind from the start with academic concepts she simply wasn't ready for (but some classmates were) even though she's bright and verbal.

@PinkElephant: I agree with this.

Just see how it goes! Ask your daughter how she likes it. Social development is one of the main reasons for preschool IMO.

My DD has been in very limited childcare (8 hours a week) since 5 months and it's been a mix of kids older and younger- the preschool kids come back after 11. Now she's at the top of her group and in 16 hours a week but she's benefited from being the youngest and oldest in different ways.

Preschool is more about social development, and I personally feel like my boys benefited from being in a room with an age range of 2-4 last year...they became really patient with "babies" as they call all the little ones. They have 13 years to be in classes with only their age group; I don't feel like one year in a mixed group will do harm. I also kind of cringed last year when people would ask me, "when are your boys going to move up to the next classroom?" It's not like they're going to fall behind or anything!

Here's my view, take it with a grain of salt....

The key is to think about being an adult, and what kind of skills are needed to cope in a world where you have to interact with people of all kinds of abilities. As an example, I do project work, and we are only successful if the entire team works together. It does no good for me to rush and have my stuff done first, I have to get a ton of people involved, explain things three times, document my evidence in a way the person with the least amount of experience can understand, etc.

That's why I think it's best for kids to be in classes of mixed ability and age. It gives them the skills to be able to cope in the long run, which is one of the points of school, imo. It's not just about personal learning.