News

Unnecessary to separate twins in primary schools

It makes no difference to the cognitive development of twins if they spend their primary school period in the same or parallel classes.

Tinca Polderman and her co-authors revealed these results in a recent article in the ‘Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health’. This is remarkable in light of the present policy in Dutch primary schools – which is to stimulate the separation of twins.

The researchers compared scores in the CITO test (taken in the last year of primary school) for more than 2000 twins listed in the Dutch Twins Register (NTR). Around 70% of these twins had been in the same class at primary school, 20% had been in parallel classes, and 10% had been partly in the same, partly in different classes. There was no difference in ability levels between the two children in any of the twin pairs. Any twins that had been separated were in parallel classes and not in higher or lower classes or at other schools. Twins with a handicap or other problems were not included in the study.

Read the article about twins in the same class.
Read the press release Separating twins in the primary school unnecessary