30th Aug Twin girls, ready for school in 2012??

[roxymalone]

Hi there

I have just started looking up school open days and admissions and starting to panic a bit already!

my oldest girls are 30th Aug babies and twins so not sure if anyone on here has experience of end of summer twins going to school and what age? and the seperation question, the girls are in full time creche and since moving to the preschool part they have seperated them for soccer squirts, and said its great for them, I know they can egg each other on if one decides to cry and no take part but they are very rarely apart as we have 1 year old DD so its hard to get the individual time.

The part time days in schools option sounds good unless like us, we both work full time, we dont have any family close by as both from Ireland so no idea how we would work that if we had to do it for longer than the first week or two,

Also I really dont want them to go to our local school, If we didn;t put it down as an option at all, is it likely we would get assigned it anyway or else end up in a random school far away?

right, i think i should put the laptop down now!! thanks in advance for any advice

Just to deal with your last question, if your daughters don't get into your preferred schools they will be offered places at the nearest school(s) with vacancies - there is no guarantee they will be offered the same school. If your local school happens to have places available in this situation that is what you will be offered. However, if it doesn't you may find that the offered school is miles away. Putting the local school down as your last choice will reduce the likelihood of being allocated places a long way from home and will not affect your chances of getting in to any of the schools you name as higher preferences.

Not twins, but my DD2 is 12th August, should have been September 13th but born 1 month prem, and has just started primary school. She is fine, so far, and her teachers say they wouldn't have picked her as a 'young one'.

DD1 was 4 on the 17th August, still on half days at the mo, but appears to be getting on ok.

she had twin girls in her pre school who are 2 weeks older than her, they're doing really well.

Do look carefully at admissions criteria, my DCs school actually has twins as a special category (as it is a rare 2 form entry school). It is a long time in your DDs lives until next September, and you will be amazed how much they grow up in this time.
Also reception is much more like Pre-school nowadays.

Do look at schools carefully, talk to teachers about your concerns (they will have heard it all before).

My DD is exactly the same age and there are days I think she will be perfectly fine at school and days where I wonder if he will cope. I think you need to visit the schools you are looking at and the nearest one to you, ask their twin policy and see what they say. You might find your local school has the right ia for your girls. Also some may only have 1 reception class which would mean they have no choice but to be together.

We have two sets of twims in dd2 reception year. Both sets were nearly 5 and their parents did ask for them to be separated, but I know one mother well and it wasn't an easy decision, she didn't decide until just before they had taster sessions. They are doing well and the 'quieter' twin is becoming more independent. I think it depends how much they play with other children too, and though they may egg each other on, all children do that and the staff will just need to manage that.

I would ring the lea about their policy on allocating places, but you need to be aware that if you don't put down your nearest school you may not get any of your other choices as other parents probably also like the schools you like. Unless the lea guarantee not to split twins (try to get that in writing) they might both end up at even less desirable schools in different places.

you could also try twin support organisations and see what their advice is. Although they are young, they are girls and they often manage better than boys, if you are both working they are used to being out all day, and I think that lots of parents feel their children are too young even when they are almost 5! They will change a lot in the coming year though, and I guess esp if they are in the same class they will have eachother which is more than most children have.

Our last school in England (East Sussex) was the only two form entry for miles, so parents of twins got preference for it as it was the only school that gave the "split or not" option. I would talk to your LEA about their twin policy though as I don't think all LEAs even guarantee to place twins in the same school.

Most LAs don't guarantee that twins will be placed in the same school. Any LA that guarantees to place both twins in the same school is almost certainly in breach of either the Admissions Code or the infant class size regulations. The ones I have seen that do this are breaching infant class size regulations. Having said that I have a lot of sympathy for their actions.

The draft Admissions Code produced by the current government allows for this by treating multiple births as excepted children for infant class size purposes but that doesn't come in until 2013.

DD was 4 on 21st August and has just started reception. To be completely honest, the transition from home to nursery was far more traumatic for her (and I) than the transition from nursery to school. She has been in school just over a week and absolutely loves it - her teacher has said she is very confident and doesn't come across as a summer born child.

The key line in my DCs admissions criteria is: Siblings in the same school year where X school is the two form entry school closest to their permanent home and the need for education in separate classes is demonstratable.
It comes after: In care, siblings, and is the closest school (SEN statements are separate as they get in first). It only applies to twins who don't live closest to X school, but do live closer than any other 2 form entry. And its before catchment area, and proximity.

They are not guaranteeing entry just boost them up the admissions slightly.

In the year between my kids are a pair of 30th August twin girls
they are now in year 8 and thriving

DS is 25th August - he LOVES being one of the youngest in his (huge) school

I have Dd with late August birthday and was not due until mid September. She is the youngest in her class, I was very aware when she started school that she may find if difficult from a maturity point of view. It has never been a problem and is doing well. She still looks younger than a lot of the others in her class but that's the only differnce.

My August-born twin boys have just started school. This time last year, when we first started thinking about applying, I would have said no way would they be ready to start in Sept 2011. However, here we are and they are doing just fine - so much has changed over the last year and I don't feel like they're starting too early at all. Our school does half days, mornings only for all Reception pupils for the first 3 weeks (which is a bit of a pain for me but seems to be working well for the kids) while they settle in.

There's only one class but the teacher has said that (with our approval) she will try to split my boys into separate groups or groupwork activities so that they gin a bit more independence. I think they'll be getting the best of both worlds - the reassurance of being in the same class but a chance to do their own thing most of the time. Out of interest, what's wrong with the local school? Have you been to look round?

Not a twin but my daughter is 26th August and she just started Reception full time last week.

She is doing fine (early days I realise) but I have a good friend with an August son who is also an ex Reception class teacher and she sent me and email with loads of tips about things you can do with the child to help prepare them for school at that age. If you're interested I can message you with a copy and paste of her email to me. It was really helpful and comprehensive.

p.s. to echo what others have said, a LOT changes in the months leading up to starting school. They can grow up a lot in a short space of time at that age. my daughter became "ready" in my eyes in the couple of months leading up to her starting and I had similar worries at about this time last year.

Hi. I have August born twin girls (now nine). They went to nursery the year before reception at the school they went to, so they did seem fairly ready for reception but they did get tired. That first term was hard work!! Now they are year five they are coping well academically. I have noticed though that their friends tend to be the younger kids in the year who are on the same 'wave-length'.

My girls are in a huge 3 class entry school. They have always been separated and I think it has probably been good for them not to be with each other all the time. I think they would agree.

Have you looked at the Twins and Multiple Births Association (TAMBA) website? They have good advice about the pros and cons of separating or not and about schools admissions issues.
Hope it all goes well for you.

Thanks so much to you all for your responses, sorry I have not had a chance to log back on since posting. I have been to two schools, first have a policy to split twins but i loved the school, it was fab, the 10 year olds showed us round and were so well behaved and able to talk, granted they probably pick the ones that are v confident but it was lovely to hear them talking bout the school, especially the sick buckets! the big downer is there are 35 places, 28 siblings already on the way in so 7 places left, unless they get planning permission and then will be 17 spare places, its also a catholic school which we are but still think we have no chance as we are about 5 miles at least away.

The 2nd school do whatever the parents want with Twins and have 90 places, so its massive, but really good and the next closest after our catchment school and also accept out of catchment.

The head spoke about the deferral of places until the half terms and half days, and as many of you have said the girls will grow up loads in the next 9 months, they have come on in leaps and bounds since starting the pre-school and adore it, actually so much they are saying they dont want to leave ever!!

I have booked one more a little bit further away who said on the phone they do accept out of catchment children, and i have booked the local school too. To answer the question on my concerns around the local school and not to sound like a complete snob(i am in no way posh) but Its near to a really rough estate and although i know the teaching is important i also believe the friends you make are as important and im just worried about who they would be friends with, also its single form entry as far as i know as its quiet small so the girls would be together as no choice. I hope that doesn;t sound awful and i might be worrying about nothing so going to hold off judgement until I attend the open day.

also thanks for mentioning the issue of twins not getting into the same school, i used to be a member of Tamba and I though that the campaign that twins got into the same school had launched already but as some have mentioned above it hasn;t, would be totally messed up if they got different schools, 3 drop offs in the morning before work would not be easy.

Hope all your children are getting on well in school, its reassuring to hear all your experiences. The creche/preschool also said we can discuss the girls progress at parents everning which is shortly.

Thanks all
x

What I've found out from reading these threads is that some schools keep the classes the same, and some shuffle them every year.

So if I had twins I'd want a 2 or 3 form entry that was prepared to shuffle kids round every year as necessary, so that every year you could decide whether or not your twins should be in the same class, rather than having to make that decision in reception and sticking with it till year 6.

My twin girls started reception this september and have settled really well, they are november birthday's so i can't help much regarding august starters however what the school has done with them re seperating has worked really well, they have a huge class (41) which is split in to two teaching groups, all 41 kids start the day together, play together and have free time together but each group is lead by a different teacher and my girls are one in each group, this means they are still around each other for most of the day but are given the opportunity to develop independence from each other, they have also done this with the other set of twins in the class.

the teachers have also pointed out that in the beginning one of my girls was copying the other to answer questions etc so seperating them at times has enabled them to make a better assessment of the girls level and what they are good at,

i also volunteer to help in the class and have noticed that the girls rarely play together and seem to of developed different friend groups,

hope this helps a little