Year 8 after school routine

[2025MUM2025]

What does your 12 year old do after school?
I am trying to implement some sort of structure for my DC.

Mine is in Y9 but it hasn’t changed much since Y8 (or Y7 for that matter). 3-4 days a week she has either sports training or her after school job. Before she goes, she does whatever she wants.

So say she gets home at 3:45, we leave at 4:30 so for 45 minutes she eats a snack, stares at her phone, gets changed. She is back later for dinner.

On other days, she doesn’t need to be anywhere and I don’t care what she does. She will mostly watch tv or be on her phone until dinner time. Sometimes she’ll go outside and ride her bike or meet a friend or jump around on the trampoline.

Dinner is about 7/7:30pm.

After dinner, she does homework and then shower and getting ready for bed by 9pm ish. Later on days she has training. In bed by 10pm.

Honestly, keeping them busy enough is key. Ours is busy 3-4 afternoons a week so only has 1-2 days (not including weekends) when there is no structure.

Guitar Lesson one day, sports 2 days, 2 evenings free. I don’t allow online gaming during the week. So it’s TV, homework, guitar practice, tea around 7pm and family time. I’ve just introduced half a hour reading after tea, it’s not gone down well but they stopped reading altogether when they went to high school and used to love it so I’m trying to get it back. Bed around 9.30.

My DD is slightly older but still has a similar routine to year 7 & 8. She's in an exam year now so school work has ramped up a but.

Home from school around 3.30pm/4pm.

Chill for 45 minutes.

Homework- she has quite a bit each day.

Dinner and then finish any outstanding homework and relax until bedtime.

2 nights a week she does a club or sport. It's much the same routine but with less if a break when she gets home to fit everything in.

She generally gets all homework done during the week so that she gets the full weekend free for seeing friends and downtime.

Ds is in year 8 and either swims, gym or Scouts every evening. So he gets in from school, I try to give him an early ish dinner and then he goes out again. He sleeps well 😆

Gets home at 4.30pm - snack, shower, homework, dinner and after dinner some chill out time.

when they have an activity that is not straight after school I adapt and they do a bit less homework.

That seems like a late dinner to me. Mine are starving by 5.30/6!
So we have about 2 hours after school before that. She does homework, sees a friend or in the summer goes in the garden, has a snack etc until tea.

Then if we’ve finished dinner at about 6.30 they watch tv maybe until 8? If any more homework was needed doing she’d do it then. Then at about 8 she gets ready for bed. I always get her to read. Lights out about 9.

DS does a sport every day after school (completely his choice). Some of the sessions are straight after school so he’s home before 5 and still has plenty of time to relax and do homework.

I let mine do what they want until 6 (on the non after school activities days) but wondering if that’s the wrong thing to do as it’s playing video games or sitting on the phone.

Do they have any clubs/sports? I think some days doing nothing is a good thing but not all week.
mine have clubs/sports 3 nights in the week. One does Saturdays and Sundays as well and the 14 year old has a Saturday job and sport but Sundays free.

I have a year 8. She does sport a couple of evenings a week. She will hang out with friends 1-2 times a week and other days she’ll watch telly for a couple of hours, eat, do homework, stretch, play Roblox etc

When do they do homework?

A classic routine is home-snack-homework-tea then free time.

He has sports training 2 days a week. Other days he can choose to do what he wants. Often he'll stay at the park by the school playing football with his mates till around 4.00pm, rarely he'll go into town, if not either of these he comes straight home where I let him do whatever he wants (xbox, piano, screen time, whatever).

We eat dinner together around 6.00ish, after that he usually retreats to his room. Sometimes he'll stay downstairs and chat with us for a bit, but not often.

We have a general understanding that I won't nag/chase him to do his homework. The expectation is just that he does it before its due in and keeps on top of it all himself.

Im not too worried about phone/xbox time as he mostly plays with his friends from primary and its a nice way for them to keep in touch.

Tuesdays swimming after school. Will read at swimming baths for half hour before the class.

Thursdays martial arts at 6.20 - will game/be on phone until then.

Hasn’t had much homework so far, tends to do it at school or at weekends.

I don’t feel like DC does any extra studying or has any interest in it and DH has commented that every time he comes home from work, DC is on their phone.

i don’t know if we are expecting too much?

My dd is in year 10 now but the routine has bean the same. Home at 3.45. Homework until 5. Dinner at 5pm then she’s out doing her sport 4 nights a week. Times vary so sometimes she’s out 6-8 and others 7-9. She’ll do more homework if she has it, though because she’s busy she tends to try and do a lot of work/ study on a Sunday. When she gets home from training it’s a shower, snack, read for 2o minutes than lights off no later than 10, but if it’s an earlier training night in bed for 9.30.

I would recommend writing down what's important for them and the family and coming up with a plan that fits both the need to do their educational needs plus anything that could help them start to understand adult like, eg some light jobs around the house

Ours are a lot younger but we have found including them in the decision and explaining what and why helps. As time has gone on its become 2nd nature for them and has become more routine like.

We tried using apps such Maple, Cozi and Equal House to help organise and put a physical structure to the things they need to do.

Mine came home at 3.30pm, got changed, ate a snack whilst chatting about their day with me and each other. Then homework. It gets it out of the way before dinner and any sports they did.

That meant both before and after dinner they were free to do whatever they wanted. We also watched tv shows with them on days they didn't have sport but that was only half an hour so still plenty of time with their mates online.

This set up the routine of doing homework daily, if they didn't have homework they could do something to broaden their education so mainly Youtube videos about stuff they were learning in school in that homework time slot.

Son in y8. He has sports or music after school every day so home at 5:30pm earliest. Then he does some homework, reads, eats supper. We don’t allow gaming in the week but there isn’t much time anyway.

being busy is key. Great for mental health as well to get out do some sport or any other activity.

So he’s doing activities a couple of nights a week, what does your DH think he should be doing more of?
I think they need some down time.
The lack of exercise at school makes me want to include sport for my kids at least 4 times a week, I worry about their health (physical and mental) when they aren’t moving enough.
It’s all a balance, especially when trying to work and exercise as parents on top of it all!

Do you limit phone time? My Y8 and Y10 kids get 1.5 hours a day phone time. I notice with my Y8 kid, there’s a massive impact on their energy levels, mood and emotional regulation if they have more. Their appetite and eating habits are also impacted so I have to keep that set up. It only gets changed if at friends in holidays etc.

My middle DC has just started year 9 - she comes home, has a snack and then just hangs out in her room, dinner around 6. No idea when she does her homework but it's always done!

Am absolutely boggling at a yr8 having the lights out for bed at 9 - my 10 year old only goes up at 9! Yr9 DD has to be reminded to switch hers off when we go around 11 and yr12 DS gets left to it downstairs til gone midnight!

Mine have always got up on time and got work done so I leave them to it tbh - hasn't done them any harm to use after school time as chill time!

If they switched the homework to week nights, then there's time to relax properly at the weekend.

Already at uni now but during secondary it was like this:

Get home, change, eat. Then homework, TV, chilling. She had homework most days for at least 45 minutes - 1 hour.

Dinner time is 7.30pm as I am not home before 6.30pm when I am in-office and we prefer family dinners.

Scout/Explorer night was different as she had to be ready by 7pm so she had leftovers or she did some pasta.

She played in an amateur theatre group and she went straight from school or I drove her after getting changed and wasn't home until 7pm.

We’re going to do this, thank you for the suggestion.

A homework slot sounds good, thank you!