Staff and students at two local schools are well and truly seeing double, with five sets of twins each starting at Caroline Chisholm Catholic College and Kingswood South Public School this year.
At Kingswood South, twins make up a quarter of their incoming kindergarten students in 2024, with 47 students in total.
In her 12 years at the school, Principal Sandra Martin said the most sets she’s seen in one year group is three.
“It’s highly unusual, but exciting at the same time,” she said.
With some parents preferring their little ones be together, and others separate, Martin said they’ve made the decision to split them across their two kindergarten classes.
“If we had them all in one class, that would be half a class of twins!” she said.
Though she said the teachers may be in for some confusion, the twins are ensuring a fun and exciting year, with future police ninjas, birthday cake bakers and butterflies among them, as told on their first day.
“We’ve got sets of two girls, two boys who went through our pre-school and are definitely a bit confusing as they’re very close-looking, and some sets of boys and girls,” she said.
“They’ve all come here for their first day, and they’ve all had a fantastic day. They’re fitting in extremely well.”
Over at Caroline Chisholm, Principal Tania Cairns said she has also only ever seen three sets of twins in one year group before.
“We have had two and I think one year there was three, but not five, so this is really a first, it’s very unusual,” she said.
“I don’t quite know what was in the water back in time when they were conceived, but there was certainly something in the water there!”
With four sets identical and one fraternal, Cairns said having that many twins at the school overall has been just as special for the kids as it is the school.
“Having gathered together last week, they certainly felt like it was very special for them, because they said they had other twins in their school, but none of them had other twins in their year groups,” she said.
“They’re a special little group within themselves, really.”
Cairns said that all of the twins are in the same classes, except one set who have been separated since Year 4, noting how strongly linked they all are to one another.
“I’ve noticed how physically connected they were, because one of them had arms link and another was holding hands – you wouldn’t normally see that in Year 7,” she said.
“It was very hard to pull them apart, they were very strongly linked to each other.”
Noting last year’s leadership team, Cairns said that maybe Caroline Chisholm is the place to be for twins in the area.
“It’s extraordinary, and it’s very, very special, especially in an all-girls school,” she said.
“Last year we had identical twin captains, and they were great role models, so I’m excited about it.”
Cassidy Pearce is a news and entertainment journalist with The Western Weekender. A graduate of the University of Technology Sydney, she has previously worked with Good Morning Macarthur and joined the Weekender in 2022.
