This is a topical post seeing as lots of my UK friends found out what school their kids got into today. If you were one of the people sitting refreshing your inbox waiting for the news, I hope that you got the place you wanted.
My boys started school in Queensland in January. They’re doing great (and thankfully they can stay at this school until they leave, so I don’t have to panic over school places any more). For their first year we decided to keep them together in class. They started kindy here in late October so we didn’t know if they’d have time to form any friendships before starting prep after the summer holidays. I wanted to make the move abroad as easy on them as possible, and as they don’t rely on each other I knew keeping them together wouldn’t cause any problems.
A few months in and things are going great. We met their teacher for a one-to-one appointment just before Easter and she was really pleased with their progress. They aren’t relying on each other, and they often don’t play together (despite being the best of friends) but she said they encourage each other along and seem to be a positive influence on each other. She asked what we’d like to do next year – keep them together or separate them.
I love that they’re best friends and there are lots of benefits of keeping them together. It makes dropping them off and picking up easy as it’s in the same classroom. I get to hear about everything that goes on during the day as T2 will give me a full breakdown of the day, whereas T1 is too energetic to stop and talk me through his day (he’s also often naughty so tends to avoid telling me what scrapes he got into!) I like seeing a teacher that knows both of them for teacher appointments (we still talk about them both as individuals with separate appointment slots, but at least the teacher has the overview of both of them.) I love knowing that they have each other for support during the day when I’m not there. I like that they both get invited to the same birthday parties, but I also like that they’re forming their own friendship groups within the class.
Split twins up now or leave it til later?
I know they’re going to have to get used to doing things separately. I’ve got them in separate swimming lessons and think it’s good for them to have time apart following their own interests. But I also love the fact that they get on so well even though they have totally different characters.
They will be really sad if we split them next year. I know that for sure.
What would you do? Have you split your twins up? Will splitting them up later on be harder than if we go for it now? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
