Is this normal behaviour for kids in preschool?

[Cheesecrumpets01]

DD is just 3 and has recently moved up to the preschool class from nursery. There seems to now be a big difference between the 3 year olds and the children that are 4/5, in their behaviour.

There is a lot of pushing children out of joining in, a select group of friends that seem to be a bit mean to the little ones. Some of the children have only been in the room 6 months longer than the newest group to move up.

We have had issues of older children hitting or pushing younger ones including DD away. When we have arrived to collect her at the end of the day, twice we have witnessed incidents with 2 older children.
One of which the boy snatched a toy off my DD, hit her on the arm then held onto her tightly and said no your not playing with that. (Teacher and my self both witnessed and it was dealt with quickly).

Then a few days later, my DD went over to see what they were doing in a cardboard box and an older girl held a pen up towards her face and said no your playing with us.

Admittedly when we have been there, it has be very quickly dealt with and the other child has been removed from the game and sat out. But it makes me think what else is going on when we aren't watching and teachers don't always see every incident.

Is this normal for 4/5 year olds to be like this? My DD (so far), hasn't been through the snatching, biting or hitting stage but has often come home telling us about a child hitting her or with accident/incident forms where she has red marks or bite marks from another child. I have worked in nurseries before, but with under 2's, so I know at that age they snatch, hit and sometime bite but is this normal at pre school age? Are the mean comments just a part of how it is at that age?

[AlmaMartyr]

I'd say it is fairly normal but some do it more than others. That does sound quite a lot. DD had no issues like this at preschool, DS was bullied by a persistent group (more extreme than you're describing).

[Misty9]

How big is the nursery class? Ds doesn't have any issues like this that we know of, but there are generally only 5-6 kids in at any one time. It sounds a bit extreme - but if you watch the secret life of 4 year olds, which has just been on channel 4, then it sounds like it might be normal behaviour...! I would ask your dd and talk to the nursery staff as well; I wouldn't be happy if ds was being sent home with accident forms all the time (and he was a biter...).