Parents of a pair of identical twins are concerned that their week-old daughters could be sent to school a year apart because they were born either side of the deadline for primary school applications.

Lexus and Amber Conway are identical in almost every way — but have different birthdays.

The twins were born three weeks prematurely, Lexus at 11.20pm on August 31, weighing 5lb 4oz. But Amber was born an hour and five minutes later, at 12.25am on September 1, after complications forced doctors at the Barratt Maternity Unit at Northampton General Hospital to perform a Caesarean section.

As she lay on the operating table, the girls' mother, Sarah Conway, 37, was alerted by midwives to the fact that one of the babies would be born after August 31, the date used to determine which school year pupils go into.

“First I realised the girls would have separate birthdays, which I was a bit upset about. Doctors were working hard to hurry up Amber's birth but the minutes ticked by.

“Then the midwives started telling me, when I was still getting stitched up, that there will be a problem with schooling — the girls will be one year apart.

“I was devastated. I wanted the doctors to fudge the paperwork and pretend Amber was born half an hour earlier, but they couldn't,” Ms Conway said.

She said that she and her partner Ian Caldwell, 42, would move heaven and earth to make sure their twin daughters were taught together.

“There's no way you can have Amber sitting at home while Lexus starts school,” Ms Conway said. “It would be desperately unfair on her to be excluded whilst her twin has all the fun. Also, if one went to school and the other didn't, their development would be different. And on the practical side, I need to work. It would be a nightmare.

“We will do all we can to fight to ensure there's leniency and they go to the same school.”

Mr Caldwell, 42, himself a twin, said the couple would either have the girls taught at home, or take the drastic measure of moving to Spain if they were unable to start primary school together.

It is highly unlikely that such action will be necessary. Local authorities are fairly strict about the August 31 cut-off date for school applications for individual children. But they are bound by law to act in the best interests of each child and would almost certainly agree to make an exception in this case so that the girls could remain in the same academic year.

A spokeswoman for Northamptonshire County Council said that when the time came for the girls to go to school, it would be willing to be flexible over the August 31 deadline. “Any decision made will be in the best interests of both children as well taking into consideration the wishes of the parents,” she said.

The couple, who have two older sons, Matthew, 16, and Jamie 10, say separate birthdays are also likely to cause problems for vaccination dates and appointments, with Lexus being technically a day older than her sister. Ms Conway, an administrator for a van hire company, said: “With jabs and things, we're going to have to go again the next day for Amber.”

She added: “How do you have a birthday on one day and do it all over again for the other one? And how do you choose which day to celebrate both?”

Times recommends

• Students to rate lecturers online
• Students face big rise in university fees
• Queen’s English Society boss’s poor spelling