Should we put dt's in different classes in school?

[nothingbyhalves]

That's it really. Dt's starting full time school in September aged 4. Teacher has asked if we would like them to stay together or go into separate classes. Dh wants them to stay together, but I'm unsure. I think they may benefit from a break from each other, and be treated more as a individual.

Dies anyone have any experience of this?

My dtd's are together but are such different characters thry have no trouble maintaining their individuality, you know them best if they are fairly independent then keeping together should be ok, otherwise it could be beneficial to seperate them. If they went to nursery you may get some good advice from their key worker

My DTriplets started school in September and are in the same class - personally I think it was the best decision we made and they love being in together.
Although we do have 1 shy triplet, we've never found that she 'held' the other 2 back, it was more that they worked as a team together - outgoing DT's helped to bring out shy DT, and all 3 felt comfortable having each other around.
They are in different groups, and only really see each other properly in free play time and at breaktimes - in these times they occasionally play together, and often play with their friends. But I think it's nice that they get the choice of playing with each other? They can always choose not to play together, whereas when they're not in the same class they don't always get that choice? Sometimes they just find it reassuring to look over and see their sister, and then they're fine.
I've always just felt that they have such a close bond, and wanted to stay together, and I didn't want to stop that.

My triplets were together until year 5 when we decided that dd would benefit from being taught separately from her higher ability brothers. They were all separated in year 7 and they're doing fine, now in year 10.

I have a twin brother, at our very small primary school we were together, but I started secondary school the year before him. It worked out fine, we're close now. Other benefit was that I got to make lots more friends and there wasn't as much competition between us as there might have been otherwise.

I don't think I could have put my twins through the scary experience (yes exciting too but still scary) of starting school and split them up. They'd been together for 5 years. However, they're boy girl and don't look at all alike. A lot of their peer's parents have never realised they're related! Dd is needed the comfort of ds's presence in the room without needing to be in the same group. Ds didn't care at all. I have other children too and so it was logistically easier to have them in the same class too because classes do trips/performances etc on different days.

Now they're older (year 4) I don't think it affects either of them much, but it's still logistically easier for me.

I think it's very tricky. We have a small village school with the first class having R and Y1 in, so no chance of splitting up starting. And I think that was good settling them in, mine are B/G. We were given the option of splitting after R, but that would have meant one 'going up' to the second class as yr 1 are split and we thought the fall out would be huge - they're very competitive.

Our biggest problem has been comparing DS less than angelic behaviour with DD. she got lots of awards for good behaviour and it didn't help his behaviour at all . I'd have jumped at going to separate classes before this year. Their teacher this year has been brilliant at managing the class interactions overall, will encourage them to play separately when needed and generally been great.

We had them in the same class for reception year, and then separated in year 1, which is what we wanted.
Year 1 teacher didn't want to separate but then agreed with us after realising how dependent on each other the boys were.
My only regret is that one boy ended up staying in that teachers class and she was horrific (shouldn't be teaching 4/5 year olds in my opinion.) but that's another story.
They are in year 4 now and are happy confident little boys. They are still as close as ever, and they still have the same friends pretty much.
They are inseparable at break times still

It depends on the twins. Research has shown that ID boys suffer emotionally and have more social problems following early separation in school - the effect is less wiht other twins. We were forced to separate ours and both developed nervous ticks and emotional and social problems. They also started fighting really badly with each other and didn't find any friends. Now they are together they are both much more stable and socially improving. They very, very rarely fight. They interact better with other children, have made some friends separately and are not always together..... although this definitely has something to do with them growing up and a much more competent teacher.

Whatever you decide - good luck.

My twin dds (now aged 10) went to a small school with only one class per year so we had no option to separate them at that point. It worked well for them as they hadn't gone to the same pre-schools as most of their classmates so didn't know any other children. They were not dependent on each other though and made different friends but their friendship circle also overlapped. When they moved to middle school in year 5 we requested that they were put into different classes and it seems to be working well.

Mine are planning to start daycare/KG and be putting them together, granted they're not even 2 yet but when it comes to putting them in school. I'd ask them. They could always be seperate when the next school year starts so they could experience both. IMO.