'You've got your hands full'

Career focus: Fun sessions are music to Cathie's ears

Cathie Flynn, far left, and fellow Musical Minis franchisees.

IF your children are still very young, you may be wondering if the day will ever come when you will return to work and not feel totally frazzled. In the first of an occasional series, mum of 10-year-old twins, Cathie Flynn, explains how she found a career path that fitted in perfectly with family life - and brings lots of laughter too...

Cathie is a franchisee for Musical Minis.*

This is a nationwide network of music sessions for babies and toddlers and each 45-minute session introduces music and percussion, concentrating on rhythm, song, sound and movement. A "world of music" is introduced to the children - from classical to modern, to encourage language development and improved co-ordination.

"Best of all," says Cathie, "it's great fun."

Schools admissions process 'badly letting down' multiple birth children - new campaign launched

TAMBA has launched a campaign to stop twins being sent to different schools - saying this traumatises children and places an enormous burden on the parents.

They are calling for the schools admission code to be changed to recognise the needs of families with twins, triplets or more. They are also calling for appeals committees to be given training to be made more aware of those needs.

Tamba says multiple birth families encounter a range of problems when applying for primary school places which appear to be exacerbated by maximum class size legislation.

Red tape forces more twins to go to different schools

I JUST don't get how this can happen. Another mum is protesting that her twins have been sent to different schools. Obviously she is supposed to split herself in half when it comes to taking them and picking them up.

And this time, the mum, Nina Phoenix, says it has caused the children to suffer in more ways than one.

Her daughter Summer Rose was accepted at one school while brother Lawrence couldn't get in.

You can read a fuller report in the Manchester Evening News.

Related posts: Mum campaigns for change in admissions process

Don't send our children to different schools

Should my girls go into different classes? Update: They never did...

DO you remember I blogged about wondering if Emily and Melissa going back into different classes would be the best thing for Year Five?

Well this update on my last update is to say they never did! Instead they got a letter, along with the rest of the class to tell them they would be in a new teacher's class next year. When I met this news by telling them that they were in fact going to be split up again, all hell let loose - well a few tears anyway.

They weren't at all fazed by being apart but they were inconsolable about missing their two closest friends, if one or other of them went their separate ways..erm to a different room a few feet away.

Should my girls go into different classes? Update: They are doing

THANK YOU to those of you who took the time to comment or vote to help me with my dilemma over whether I should ask for my daughters to go back into separate classes.

I decided they should in the end. It's certainly easier for me to have them in the same class - with the same homework and parents' evening appointments - but I do think it's best for them that they can be encouraged to thrive away from each other as much as possible.

They are happy either way, so there you go.

Poll: Should I ask my daughters' school to put them in different classes next year?

WHEN my daughters started school, there was no doubt in my mind they should be separated.

This was because I believe they need to be seen and act as individuals from day one. Some families may feel four is too young. We had rare moments where Emily cried a little from missing her sister, but overall they were more than fine, and have been ever since - together or apart.

Of course you have to do what is right for your own family and I would never knock anyone for the decision concerning their children as they know them better than anyone else.

Now, as Year Five is approaching, because of reasons too complicated to describe fully, but linked with the number of children at the school, they have been in the same class for the last school year.

Eight-year-old twins invent 'wedgie proof' underwear

DO you know what a wedgie is? I only found out a week or so ago, when Emily said she didn't want to pull her trousers up any more!

Now American twins Jared and Justin Serovich have found fame after inventing underwear called "Rip Away 1000," - clothing that refuses to be jerked up to give its wearer a painful "wedgie."

The brothers hit on the idea after giving each other the treatment. I wonder if it'll catch on. Watch this video for a fuller story...

Yeah but no but is this who should be teaching our children?

WHO is this unsavoury character? No it's not Malcolm McLaren's replacement in the jungle.

This is apparently what our children's favourite teacher would look like, according to the Children's Society.
Children across the UK chose TV’s Dr Who, David Tennant as their ideal celebrity teacher in a poll conducted by CBBC Newsround in conjunction with the charity.

NSPCC Your Family magazine: Focus on bullying

HOW can you nip bullying in the bud if your child is either the bully or the victim? Linda Jones reports. Read more.

* A lovely little boy helped me with this piece, telling me how he was being picked on at school. A massive thanks to him and his mum. They know who they are.

School welcomes eight sets of twins

HERE we go with a nice 'double the fun' type story.

The school has split the students into separate tutor groups at the request of their parents so the twins can make their own friends and forge their own interests. Hurrah.

I saw them all on Central News last night too. More information in twins in school here, here and here.