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Ages since I have had twins at pre-school........

 

In September I have identical twin girls starting with me.......I have started to 'allocate' children to their future Key Person(s) - my question is .........would you put them both with the same KP?

 

I have at the moment - I'm thinking just one main point of contact for their family........but I'm really not sure about this......I certainly don't want or expect identical Learning Journeys......

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We have had twins in the past and have done exactly that. I actually spoke to the parents and gave them the choice but they were more than happy with just one point of contact. It also helps out if you have parents evenings etc as they only have to speak to one person. There are pros and cons to it but I can only advise you do what you think suits the children and the setting

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I think I'd give them the same KP. Continuity for the parents and one persons judgements for both might highlight their differences more than two people with different thought processes. Tell the KP you want to celebrate differences and it might make them look deeper. Of course they might be chalk and cheese anyway ;)

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We currently have two sets of twins at pre-school and last year had a set of identical twins, we have different key workers for each twin. Personally when we had the identical twins I would not have been able to get my head around doing learning journeys for them both. It would be fine with the sets of twins we have now though, but that is just the way it worked out.

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this is the first year we haven't had any for the 6 years i've been here. i asked parents, and all said together. and as we are a single form entry school they will always be in the same class till year 6 .......... and need to make it clear to kp that they need to be celebrated as individuals and lj should reflect this. parents may feel they would be better apart though....

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I think I'd give them the same KP. Continuity for the parents and one persons judgements for both might highlight their differences more than two people with different thought processes. Tell the KP you want to celebrate differences and it might make them look deeper. Of course they might be chalk and cheese anyway ;)

Never thought of it like that, makes good sense!!

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We did ask the parents if they were ok with having two different key workers and they all were. Too be honest we are a small community pre-school and only three of us are key workers and parents would mostly approach me (manager) before they approached their key workers.

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we have 2 sets of twins at the moment and each set has the same keyworker mainly because wherever one is so is the other so we thought it was easiest to keep them together, having said that each is very different from the other so it has been easy to differentiate on the LJ. We always try to pair siblings with the same KP so I feel that this makes sense for twins too.

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I do wonder why we feel the need to split twins up...is it to suit us adults do you think?? Do the twins ever get asked what they would like??

 

I've had all sorts of twins in my classes and they were all individual, even the identical ones. One family I taught had 2 sets of twins with a single child in the middle, they were Nigerian so as per tradition the first 2 had been named Taiwo and Kehinde, so when the second set came along they became Taiwo Jnr and Kehinde Jnr!

 

In my own primary school class there were 3 sets of twins and 1 set of triplets. As a lone twin I made half a set, but I have never come across that number of multiples ever again!!

 

Cx

Edited by catma
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I do wonder why we feel the need to split twins up...

 

Cx

 

Just to clarify - i have no intention of splitting these little girls - we are a very small rural pre-school operating in one room - girls would always be together :1b

 

What I am anxious to avoid is them somehow being considered as a 'unit' for want of a better description (it's late!)........for instance I will speak to my staff and remind them not to refer to them as 'the twins' but rather as Ellie and Elsa (not their real names!).......

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my daughters best friends were identical and in fact people thought they were triplets as she looked a lot like them!! their mum used to put the same colour ribbon in/clips/bobbles on each one every dayto help - one had blue, the other pink. that helped me when they came to play too!!!! x

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Our identicalls where in separate key groups, mum was consulted and happy with this and we felt it did give them opportunities to be independent of each other and then during free play they generally went back together again. They had such different personalities but where quite reliant on each other but in a nice way so we did suggest to their primary to keep them together but were so small they could always see each other. Think it def depends on their personality and take mums opinion on board maybe a home visit ?? Only thing that was a nightmare was photo obs mum luckily had a good sense of humour because we where always sticking the wrong photo in the wrong twins folder :)

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Guest lillybeth

We have three sets of twins at the moment, two sets are identical. As with dixonnic76 the children are in separate key groups, for the same reason to encourage independence and also to ensure that they are seen as individuals not just "the twins". It has worked well the children are happy and have the opportunity during free flow play to play together.

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so many experiences! We've had both situations - same KP and separate depending on the children.

 

Same as others in terms of 'policy' - strictness on not being known as 'the twins' (really hard when that's what the parents call them!), focus on getting to know their personalities as fast as possible, having some time apart to reflect/establish interests (depending on their confidence/well being), ensuring feed back is given as separate units ie not 'they've' been...

 

re photo's we did have one set that even mum struggled to identify!! (and when they were older and we showed them their photos and they couldn't identify themselves even if they appeared singly in photo's - they would always name the other twin - which raised the question how much did they understand their own identity?) They would often swap hair slides etc with other children so that didn't help either; fortunately we've since never had such identical twins and curiously subsequent sets have never been dressed the same which is nice for them being able to see themselves as an individual

 

such an interesting topic...would love to have a twin if only so they would tootle off to the hairdresser and experiment on my behalf!

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We seem to be overrun with sets of twins - identical and non-identical. We are a church hall (single room) environment so the children aren't split - however on occasions parents have requested that as well as coming say twice a week together they come once a week on their own so that they have the opportunity to "become their own person" so to speak.

 

We always offer parents the opportunity to have the same KP if they like however ..... human nature is human nature and that goes for practitioners too - to try to avoid children (multiple births and siblings) being perceived as being "the same" or "just like the last one" we like to give the children different KPs so that they are observed with "fresh and unbiased (even if the bias is unintentional) eyes.

 

This works for us and our families and it maybe it is because we are a single room environment with a consistent staff team. We find that whilst all children have KPs they frequently gravitate to other adults throughout their time with us that they "prefer the company of". All staff are also very much aware of who all the children are and their ages and stages.

 

Parents are given the choice at parents meetings to meet with the children's individual KPs or if they choose discuss both children with a single KP (they often talk about the children's similarities and differences and know both children equally well).

 

As for identification - when they were different gender twins it was easy xD :lol: xD but with the identical children some chose colour markers e.g., pink and red hair clips or purple and pink cardigans. Sometimes it was impossible to identify which twin was which when it came to photos but usually the twins could identify each other (sooooo spooky!). One set we had even did almost identical pictures for their transfer profiles even though they did them separately!

 

Whilst I am not a twin myself I have some personal experience in the family (not my own children) but twin cousins and triplet aunt and uncles and one of my staff is a mother of twins so we have incorporated elements of those experiences in our practice and it seems to work (but as I have said that is in the context of a single room environment). Our twin parents have also like our approach enough to recommend us to their twin parenting friends (perhaps that's why we get so many :rolleyes: ).

 

All of our sets of twins have very much developed their own personalities and as they got to the rising 4 stage our identical sets (recognising that they could cause confusion) would try to play tricks on us - one mum reported that one morning one set of twins said they were going to come in the other's colour scheme to fool the staff and when they went on to school (identical uniforms there) managed to get away with being in the other's class for a good half hour - the other children in the class kept telling the teacher that they hadn't "got the right twin" but the teacher (obviously knowing best) didn't believe them until they "fessed up".

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