SARAH Mason's twins Libby and Jimmy are "more than ready" to start kindergarten.
"They're pretty excited," Ms Mason said. "We're really lucky, Rutherford Public School has a really long transition program so they've been attending two hours one day a week from the start of term two all the way up to term four last year. Then they had orientation days in term four... they had to go to daycare the next day and Jimmy was like 'Uh no I go to big school now.'"
The Newcastle Multiple Birth Club has 12 sets of twins and one set of triplets who will start kindergarten this year. 10 sets of twins will attend public schools while the other two sets of twins and the triplets will attend Catholic schools.
"They are absolutely more than ready," said Ms Mason, who is also the club president. "I'm a pinch nervous, it's a new thing and they have not actually spent a whole entire day at school, so I'm interested to see how that goes. But they're both really excited and have been practising all the things they were learning at their transition days, like clapping syllables and they want to read and do numbers."
And mum? "I am so ready. Twins are always hectic and they are just so clever and so ready to be with their friends all the time and have a new adventure. It's getting harder and harder to keep them occupied and happy at home with what I'm able to get up to - I also have an 18 month old."
She said Libby had great interpersonal skills, would be good at group work and was interested in science and trying new things. Jimmy enjoyed reading, could already do basic multiplication and would benefit from more challenges. She said they were most likely to form their own friendship groups.
"The thing that's been difficult for us to manage at home that I'm excited for at school is that they sometimes - Libby more than Jimmy - notice what the other one can do, so a couple of times she's said something along the lines of 'He's the clever one' and feels like she's not as much, so I'm really excited they're going into separate classes because of that."
Ms Mason said the Australian Multiple Birth Association position was that parents of twins and triplets should be given the choice of whether to keep their children together or separate - and this should be reviewed each year. Libby and Jimmy, aged five, have been in different rooms at daycare for two years.
"School will be different because they will be separated for most of the day, but even recently we've been using vacation care and I've had a few days when one goes to vacation care and one is with me.
"At the end of those days they run at each other and have a great big hug, which is so sweet considering that at home half the time they are [fighting] tooth and nail!"
Jess Thompson said she had opted to keep her identical twins Avery and Vera, aged four, in the same class at Floraville Public School.
"It's such a hard one," Ms Thompson said. "Because it's all so very new for them and they're attached at the hip, they do everything together - they've been in daycare their whole lives as well - splitting them up and starting school and that whole process, I think that's a lot for them. So I think I will look at separate classes but not until next year."
She said while the girls usually opted to wear their hair differently and put their own individual spin on clothing - Vera likes pink and Avery likes purple - "every once in a while they go 'We're going to wear the same thing to trick our teachers' - they're definitely at that cheeky age".
Ms Thompson said while she expected them to stick together for the first half of the year, they were confident branching out in different directions once comfortable.
She said the girls relished learning and had been using the Reading Eggs app.
She said both were naturally creative and liked music and dance. Vera enjoys maths while Avery is more expressive and would be the first to befriend others. "They're definitely not shy, if anything they're too outgoing!"
Rachael Leonard said she had noticed a big difference between her fraternal twins Jack and Hugo, five and a half, preparing to start at Hamilton Public and their brother Henry, eight.
"Because they've got each other there hasn't been the same nerves and anticipation I'd noticed in their older brother, it's just 'Off we go'," she said. "[For me] it's a big turning point in my life almost... I had in my head from when they were six weeks old 'I've just got to get them to school' and it almost feels like gee that happened really quickly and it's over now."
Ms Leonard said the school had a focus on nature play "which they're both going to love and just feel like it's an extension of preschool" and the boys were eager to learn.
She said the boys were each other's "security blanket" and she'd opted to keep them in the same class and reevaluate this at the end of the year. She said she expected them to share the same friendship group.
"At the moment they haven't had a whole lot of time apart and they don't quite identify themselves yet as being separate people, so they still very much do what each other does and they're constantly thinking about the other twin as well and what would best suit each other.
"So that's something else I'm excited to see is their own personalities shine through."
She said the boys enjoyed dressing the same but looked nothing alike, with Jack being shorter and leaner with long curly hair until recently, while Hugo is taller and solid with short straight hair. She said they'd spent the summer working on their independence.
The parents all said they were hopeful their children's first day would go smoothly.
Ms Mason said she and her husband would walk Libby and Jimmy to school and hopefully to their classrooms.
"I think everything will go smoothly because they'll be excited and want to know stuff but I feel like I'm going to cry," she said.
"The saving grace is our 18 month old has a swimming lesson that morning so once we're done at school I'll have something to distract myself with. It's going to be really strange having them out of the house five days a week."
Ms Thompson said she was curious to see how Avery and Vera behaved.
"It's like with dropping off at daycare, you can have good days and bad days still because they still are very young, but I think they've been so pumped they'll be like 'Yep we've got our stuff, okay, see ya'. If they get upset it will pull at the heartstrings, but I think we're all ready for them to give it a go."
She said she wasn't feeling "overwhelmed".
"I think it's just part of the process, so I'm super excited for them to move on to that next stage because they've been in the daycare realm for five years."
Ms Leonard said she cried at the orientation day. "I think I'm going to have some tears and emotions around my babies going off to school," she said.
"It feels like such an achievement to get them from where they were - they were [premature] and all the rest of it - to now and I think they're going to be quite excited, but I'm anticipating them to be very tired at the end of the first couple of days."
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