To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will take immediate steps to amend articles 5.6a and 156 (46.2b) of the Education Reform (NI) Order 1989 in such a way as to create the social and educational flexibility which will ensure that siblings born within the same year are not required to be treated as twins.
The arrangements for commencement of compulsory education are designed so that children can learn and be taught with their peers, with the articles in question setting the boundaries for each class. In any class there will commonly be a wide span of individual birth dates within the 12-month range. This operates satisfactorily and there are no educational grounds for a distinction to be made, in this respect, between children within one family.