We have identical twin boys who turned 6 in october. They are going to a highly regarded gifted school. They are in the 4-6 year old entry class. There are two separate classrooms, and the school's preference / policy is to seperate twins into different classrooms.
What we see is that classroom 1 has a phenomenal teacher, and DS is thriving in that class. Classroom 2 has a teacher that is not connecting with DS2. The teacher is stern, strict, constantly reprimands the children, and DS2 underperforms in class. DS2 is sullen at the end of the school day while DS1 is happy and joyful. DS2 is starting to have behavior problems at home acting like he is a 4 yr old, temper tantrums etc. DS1 seems to mature more every week.
We see a couple issues...
1) Teacher fit... kind, gentle teachers that encourage the boys do well with them. Stern, strict teachers turn them off immediately.
2) We suspect that the twins perform better together as they are more comfortable. DS2 will "act" like the other kids around him. If they perform significantly lower than him, he will "act" and perform like them too. When he is with his brother, he performs to his potential.
We want to advocate for having the boys put in the same class, but we are running into resistance. The school wants to keep twins apart. We can find no reseach suggesting that this is beneficial, and I can only find two studies (kings college and one other) that note that separating twins, especially identical twins seems to cause more emotional issues while not improving academic achievement.
We are also having issues around the critique of the teacher our DS2 does not get along with. The teacher is well regarded at the school, but we see that she is a bad pairing with our son.
Any help out there for advocating for keeping twins together in school? Any help with how to get kids moved when they are in classroom situations that cause crying, emotional distress and underperformance?
Thanks!
