Hey 6H! I wanna update on something in the newspapers that has something to do with BPS

Sunday Times, August 30 2009, Home, Page 8

Step into Bendemeer Primary School and you might just see double - not once, but 12 times.

The school, in Bendemeer Road, has 12 pairs of twins under its roof, with 10 pairs being identical twins. No one knows why the school, which has a total of 1,100 pupils, attract so many twins, most of whom live nearby.

While the pupils may boast to friends that they have many friends who are twins in the school, the teachers understandably have a difficult time telling the twins apart. Primary 3 form teacher Santhosa Kumar faces this problem in school each day.

The Imran sisters in his class - Nina Qistina and Rues Lizanna, nine - look so alike he often cannot tell them apart.

"It's not a problem in class because they sit apart. But when they are outside the class, I have a problem," said Mr Santhosa

At the request of their parents, some of the twins are put in different classes. The Yap brothers, Ka Hao and Ka Jie, eight, have been in different classes since Primary 1, a request made by their mother.

"She wants us to be separated because we quarrel a lot when we are together," said Ka Hao impishly.

Identity confusion does not necessarily end for the teachers, even when the twins are separated.

The school's discipline mitress, Mrs Veronica Gilbert, was walking to her class to conduct a lesson when she saw a pupil - one of a pair of twins - whom she then reprimanded for not being in class.

"But he turned out to be the other twin who was from another class. His twin brother, my pupil, was in the classroom all the time," she said.

Children will play pranks, given half the chance.

Twins are no exception, and some have pretended to be the other twin, with the teachers realising they were "conned" only much later.

Twins Md Farfan aand Md Fadhil Adbul Wahab, 11, look alike, except that one of them is 1cm taller and 4kg heavier.

Said Md Farhan: "We were in the same remedial class in Primary 4. Once, the teacher called for me, but I told her she got the wrong person."

At times, teachers find it necessary to place twins in different classes because they are too emotionally close. Eleven-year-old Sulaiman brothers Muhammad Istifar and Muhammad Farhan are so emotionally connected that when one twin gets scolded, the other feels stressed and upset.

Said Mrs Gilbert: "We separated them into different classes in March this year and noticed a huge difference in their performance, for the better, after that."

The Sulaiman brothers also have twin siblings, a boy and a girl aged 13. The boy is now in secondary school while the girl is repeating her Primary 6.

As for the Chua sisters, Hui Min and Hui Ping, 10, they are happy to be in Bendemeer Primary. Said Hui Min: "I like being in this school. It makes me feel special that I'm one of the many twins studying here."

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End of News report!

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