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Original poster

Number of sets of twins in primary school

52 replies

SerialMover · 01/02/2023 12:37

Was speaking to a teacher friend of mine the other day about the number of sets of twins we have in my children's primary school, and she thought it was a large number, something I'd never really thought about before, so I thought I'd see if our school was unusual or not...

DC 1 - 2 sets of twins (B/G and GG)
DC 2 - 1 set (BB)
DC 3 - 2 sets (B/G and GG)

plus 2 sets that I can think of in reception, and 3 sets in 2 other year groups, there may be more! So at least 10 sets in a 2 form entry primary.

How many sets of twins/multiples does your school have?

OP posts:
eatsleepeatrepeat · 01/02/2023 16:16

In my experience as a teacher, there's been an increased number of twins in the last 10-20years. Mainly due to increased use of IVF. There does also seem to be more twins in affluent area schools as opposed to schools in areas of poverty (just from my experience!).

Veryfaraway · 01/02/2023 16:19

Up to the primarys 3s in DDS very big primary there are two sets of twins and no triplets. Not sure about the older half of the school

VitaminX · 01/02/2023 16:23

There is one set in my daughter's year and one set in my son's year. About 50 kids per year group. I don't know about other years!

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PriamFarrl · 01/02/2023 16:26

I’m in a two form entry primary. We have a fair number of twin, I’d say it averages out at about 3 sets in the school at one time. Some years we have more. We are not a well-to-do school, in fact we are about 50% free school meals.

LivesinLondon2000 · 01/02/2023 16:27

Yes definitely more twins than before. And agree the increase must be due to both older mums and ivf. The increase in boy/girl twins is particularly noticeable to me. I think every year group in my DC’s 2- form entry school has at least one set of boy/girl twins.

Pinkypurplecloud · 01/02/2023 16:30

One form entry, one set of B/G twins in the whole school to my knowledge. And two sisters eleven months apart in the same class too.

DinDjarin · 01/02/2023 16:42

I know of two sets in DC's small one form entry primary. Both b/g one definitely not IVF, the other I always assumed but never liked to ask.

Primary aged from my friends I know of 3 sets, none from ivf. One set id girls, two b/g; mums were 26-30 when the children were born.

nannapat58 · 01/02/2023 16:45

I have twin grand kids, when they go school there will b six set twins starting in reception

slamfightbrightlight · 01/02/2023 16:45

I don’t know of any! One form entry though which maybe puts some parents of twins off

PuttingDownRoots · 01/02/2023 16:46

DD has 2.5 sets of twins in her class. The other yr5 class has 1.5 sets (parents can chose whether or not to split them)

GetTheGoodLookingGuy · 01/02/2023 16:49

Bramshott · 01/02/2023 14:59

In my DD's class at primary school there were 2 sets of siblings born within the same school year. I wondered whether that were rarer or more common than twins.

I would think rarer. Not only do they have to be less than a year apart, they also have to be born at the right times of year to put them in the same year. So if you had 12 pairs born 11 months apart, with the oldest of each pair in a different month, only one pair (September/August) would be in the same school year.

That said, we have two pairs like that in the school I work in, as well as 3 sets of twins (all in the same three-form entry year group).

Also, my brothers are twins, and in their student houses at uni, they each lived with another twin!

BogRollBOGOF · 01/02/2023 16:59

In my form at school, there were 2.5 sets of twins... BG, BB, and a B with G in another form.

There was another pair of twins in the year born on the same day as one of the pairs in my form. (That's at least 4 pairs in a year of 240, b early 80s)

DS1 had a pair of identical twins in his primary class. DS2 has fraternal twins. I think it is roughly every other year group in line with average.

LakeTiticaca · 01/02/2023 17:28

3 sets of boy twins in my sons primary class (20 years ago) not an affluent area and not older mothers

HistoryFanatic · 01/02/2023 18:07

It might not be IVF as clinics have had to cut down on their multiples rate.

Maroon85 · 01/02/2023 18:11

There are 2 sets of twins in my daughters class of 26. Not sure about other year groups though I do see an older set of identical twins at drop off

Ihatethenewlook · 01/02/2023 18:17

Bramshott · 01/02/2023 14:59

In my DD's class at primary school there were 2 sets of siblings born within the same school year. I wondered whether that were rarer or more common than twins.

I was going to say I thought there were two sets of triplets just in my ds class. Turns out it’s one set of triplets, and a set of twins with a brother 8 months younger in the same class. No idea about IVF but it’s a deprived area

ButteryNuts · 01/02/2023 18:21

This is ten years ago but there were 4 sets of twins in my year at secondary school.

3 of those sets were all girls and the names had the following pattern: A & B, B & C, C & D. So only 4 names between 6 twins.

SpaceJamtart · 01/02/2023 18:32

My twins are in reception, its 3 form entry and they are the only ones in their year. When they started, the head commented that they haven't had indentical twins in a long time as the only other set are in year 5. It seems like such a big school I thought there would be more- but maybe theres quite a few sets of fraternal twins. But they are harder to spot on the playground.

There are a pair of boys in reception that I thought were twins as their Mum was dropping them off together but it turns out they are just brothers born in September and June so ended up in the same school year.

RingRingRingGoesTheTelephone · 01/02/2023 18:36

There were at least 4 sets in my school in the 80s, 2 were in my class. I know for a fact a set who was in another year were the result of assisted conception (I married their brother!). Another set their parents were much older.

I don't think there's a single set in my children's school though, I know a few people had ivf and most of us had our children early-mid 30s in my children's classes. I don't think they tend to allow more than 1 embryo to be put back when doing ivf these days, I think it used to be common practice.

Maybe there's just a really high proportion of older mothers (babies in their 40s) in some areas?

EspressoPatronum · 01/02/2023 18:45

My child’s 1 form Entry infant school has 1 set of identical twins in year 2, 2 sets of identical twins in year 1 and a set of b/g twins in reception.
So 8 twins out of 90 kids.

Favouritefruits · 01/02/2023 18:50

There’re four sets in my eldest sons year but my youngest has no twins in his reception year.

Upsidedownagain · 01/02/2023 18:51

In my dd's secondary school there were 7 sets of twins out of 150 total . Headteachers comment4d on it as being unusual in the first meeting we went to. Catchment is mainly quite affluent.

ShillyShallySherbet · 01/02/2023 18:53

Reception - twins BB
Year 1 - no twins
Year 2 - twins GG
Year 3 - twins BG
Year 4 - twins BB
beyond those years I don’t think there are any

Babamamananarama · 01/02/2023 19:00

We have what feels like a really high incidence of twins.

We have a 0.5 form entry so 15 kids per year and mixed classes (yr 1/2, yr 3/4 etc). Currently we have:

Reception: set of triplets
Yr 1: 1 of B/G fraternal twins, 1 set identical twins
Yr 2 no twins
Yr 3: identical twins
Yr 4: identical twins

We also have multiple sibling pairs with 1 school year between, so my daughter's class (yr 3/4) has 4 pairs of siblings in it including the 2 sets of twins!!

We are in Cornwall.

Babamamananarama · 01/02/2023 19:02

Ours works out as 11 kids in 75 who are from multiples!