Can I ask how you manage after school care for Y7...

Dd has being a latchkey kid since the summer holidays of Yr6. She's been fine. I did get one of those key boxes you put in your house wall with a combination lock incase she lost her house key.

What are you saying she will be too young? Do you have reasons to believe she won't be able to cope, or do you believe that 11 year olds are just capable of doing so?

She has another 18 months to adjust to it, that's a long time to get her prepared for it. You can start leaving her alone for 1/2 hour or so and increase it next year. Then towards this time next year, you could start making the trip back from the school she will go to with her so she will be familiar with it. Also, if she goes to after school club right now, it is likely a number of her friends will be in the same situation, will any of them go to the same school?

DD's school has homework club til 5 every day. This is what we do when one of us isn't home before she gets back as we're a bit way off her being happy to come into an empty house. Other days she has after school clubs, or heads to the coffee shop with a friend.

All kids are different and mature at different rates and homework club is a good way for them to spend the time.

A friend of ours paid an older child as a babysitter for an hour - they did homework together!

In y7, your DD will be fine on her own at home until you get home.

You'll probably find she has after school stuff some days and hangs round with friends after school on other days, so the amount of time she is actually home on her own isn't much.

You'll find she changes and grows up just within the first term at her new school.

When DS was in Year 5 I couldn't have imagined him coming home by himself even within the next couple of years and by Year 7.

But now, after nearly only one term in Year 7 I could quite imagine him easily doing that, getting off the school coach and walking home for about 5pm and me turning up home from work at 6pm. Dinner on the table, pipe and slippers all ready, and the wine opened to breathe for the last hour. Good lad.

Well, maybe not all of that, but at least coming home and sorting himself out for a bit. NB: he doesn't do this, but I'd be happy for him to do so if he did have to.

They grow up quickly. Next thing you know...

Would second all of the advice above - my DC were both fine being home alone for an hour or two several days a week by start of Y7. And both of their schools allow kids to stay in the library til 5.30 or so if they want.

Another option you could consider though is either a childminder, or a less formal arrangement with another parent - preferably one who lives near the school and is at home themselves - to have your DD go there for an hour or two after school each day. Childminders can do secondary aged kids though, and will often be happy to have them especially if they can make their own way there from school.

Firstly, don't fret. Your DC will mature immensely in the next 18 months.

There isn't much organised provision, because people generally don't use it. If the gap between her home time and yours is fairly short, you may come round to the up idea that she is capable of being alone (if you can have an at-home neighbour on standby, so much the better).

If you really don't want to do that (and it's a decision to be made nearer the time), the standard alternatives are to find out if she can stay in her secondary after school (formal homework club, or simply access to the library of some other place to work), or telling her to go to the nearest public library (if you have one) to work quietly, or if you haven't got one, give her coffee money use a cafe. Or just enrol her in lots of after school activities which she can reach independently.