Siblings in same academic year- any tips for a smooth start?

[TeddyBear5]

Dd and ds3 will be starting reception together in September. She will be 5, he will be 4.1. It's a single form entry school so they will be in the same class.

Any experience/ advice / tips on how to stop this going wrong?! I'm not feeling very confident that this will go smoothly. She's very independent and bossy a leader but likes her space away from him (currently at pre school together) and he's like a little puppy who follows her around and have things done for him.

Help please!

I can't think of anything helpful to say but I'll bump this for you in case someone else can. I think under those circumstances I would have made it a priority to get them into a school with 2-form entry, but clearly it's a bit late for that and quite possibly wasn't a practical option for you anyway. I hope the next poster can be more helpful...

As a reception teacher I've never found it a problem. They will generally make their own friendship groups and ignore each other for the bulk of the time in school.

That's promising Mrz, thanks. One positive is aside from their surname most people won't really know they are siblings but one concern was that she'd be emotionally responsible for him. He's probably going to have a harder time starting school and I don't want her to be used as his 'buddy' or crutch but I guess I'll sieak to the teacher about that.

There's not really an option to choose another school. It's our village school and next choice is also one form entry in the neighbouring village. The answer to that would be a drive to the town 4 miles away which I don't think is practical with older siblings already at school and I don't think we would get in anyway.

Explain your concerns to the teacher but it's unlikely a teacher would expect your daughter to be his buddy much better to encourage both to build wider friendship groups.

I've got twin boys in the same class if that's any use to you. I did talk to the teacher and ask that they sit at different tables (after the first couple of weeks). I can tell when they are spending too much time together (arguing after school etc) but they've generally got their own friends. I've found school work to be much more independent anyway, it's unlikely that the teacher would allow her to be doing his work for example.

I have two sets of siblings in my mixed age class-one set of twins and one set of siblings. Both deal with the situation in a totally differetn way, the twins are very close and their relationship is apparent, the siblings aren't! In fact you wouldnt know they were related apart from the same surname.

Great to hear first hand experience. Mine are probably the like the latter in your class spanieleyes. They get on fine but really don't 'need' each other and DD especially will prefer having her own friendship groups.

It's quite sweet though, they'll have each other there if needed.