To think wraparound childcare for year 7 isn’t a thing

[BananaPie]

Help me solve a debate with DH..

I think that when ds goes into year 7 in a couple of years time he will be walking to school and back by himself. He’ll be home by around 4pm and will have homework to complete.

At the moment while he is at primary school he goes to the after school club most afternoons and either me or dh pick him up around 6pm (neither of us work from home).

I think that when he is at secondary school we will need to change our working hours so that one of us can be at home from around the time he gets back from school. That way we will be able to check he isn’t accidentally burning the house down and make sure he settles down to some homework.

Dh’s view is that this will be too tricky to organise with work and we should get a nanny / childminder/ tutor.

Wider context - some special needs issues and we can’t see ds being particularly independent/ sensible by the time he gets to year 7.

What do most people do?

Well I would say most children of that age would stay at home on their own until you returned from work. However if your child is not able to do so then I assume he would either need to go to a childminder or have a nanny.

IDK about these days, but in the early 2000s I would have died from the embarrassment if I'd had a childminder/afterschool club or whatever in secondary school.

Most people who don't feel able to let their children go home alone in Year 7 make use of the school library, a local library or some other hub where it's possible to sit and read a book for a while. Lots of secondary schools offer something along the lines of a homework club at least a few days a week so that may reduce the pressure.

My dd has ASD and currently y5. Next year when she starts secondary, she'll walk home after school. I think one of us will be wfh most days.

I hope I could trust her for an hour or two at home by then. However v unlikely she'd do her homework as she still needs a lot of help with it.

Most secondary schools that I am aware of seem to have it be perfectly normal for the library to be open for all students after school until a particular time 17:00/17:30/18:00 and anyone can stay and work quietly on their homework or just sit and read for a bit before going home. Your DS at y7 stage should be ok to get himself to school as per your plan and stay at school until a sensible time to be able to arrive home not too much earlier than you. If you normally get home at 6ish I think its fine for a y7 to get home at 17:30 and be unsupervised for 30 minutes. Unless he's actually likely to dig out the lighter fluid and matches and start kindling a fire immediately when he gets in, that shouldn't be a problem. He will just stick the telly on.

He'll surely be mature enough by then to do a deal - if when you get in half an hour after he does the dishwasher is unstacked and the kettle has been recently boiled and all his homework is up to date then he won't have to clear up after tea. Or whatever inducement will work for a fair share of daily chores of your choice.

I think your husband is right. A childminder/nanny type of person could be at home when he gets in, his school friends would have no idea so it would be fine. That said, I think if you could afford to lose out on a few hours a week pay and your work would allow it I would much prefer to be the one at home when they get in.

DS is y6 and has some "high functioning" SNs. I'm a SAHM largely because he hated the noise and busyness of the after school club. DS2 is 2 years younger, so my thoughts are returning to work when they're y7& y9 as they can keep each other company.

Unless he has special needs I think most would expect their child to either stay at school in the library or at a club for an hour or so, or to make their own way home, let themselves in and wait until you get home from work a couple of hours later.

I know you've mentioned SN issues - i can see why you might not feel comfortable with him being home alone, but would he be ok to go to the library and do his homework? And then you could collect him later?

Ours are both pretty sensible and we’re reasonably able to be independent at that age. But it’s an awkward cross over time I agree - mostly alleviated for us by covid and working from home hitting just as we got to that stage.

But what we did before we started WFH was encourage him sternly to go to as many of the after school clubs as he could, and if not possible, then go to the library and do homework with a friend. There were plenty of kids doing the same. Then, he’d text or call us when he left school and again when he got in the house. We were aiming to minimise the alone time in the house to less than an hour for the three days we were both out at work.

Good luck deciding - I would say it is pretty rare for y7 to go to a childminder and they’d probably only have a nanny if there were younger siblings. But I agree that to start with at least, it can be uncomfortable to just have them letting themselves in to an empty house and being alone there for 3 hours ish - especially if SEN. Good luck exploring options! Perhaps a combo of altered working hours and after school library / clubs?

What SweeneyTodd said in the first reply really.

YANBU in thinking it isn't generally a 'thing', but equally if your dc has some additional need that means they might not cope, then make arrangements that work for you.
When my eldest started secondary school, he continued to walk back to the CM he had been with for years, who was still collecting his siblings, for the first month or so. He really struggled with organisation and we just felt for him all the changes would be a bit overwhelming. Our CMer lived fairly close to us, so it didn't make any difference walking to hers, than walking to ours.
He then went for a spell of going to the library instead of coming home to an empty house on his own and I'd pick him up from there, or he'd walk home when it closed.

I do think most children quickly learn to manage, but I think being home alone until 6pm 5 nights a week, week after week is a long time for quite a lot of dc, particularly in the first half term.

No idea how easy or difficult it would be for you to arrange, but maybe each of you could arrange to be home early a couple of times a week / wfh for the first month or 1/2 term and see how it goes ?

Dd1 will be Year 7 in Sept.
I will wfh approx 3 days per week so she will be coming home & letting herself in unless she has clubs/library on the other 2.
I've started leaving her for an hour or so while dd2 does sports and next term we will ramp up practise of walking to & from school. Over the summer we'll practise the bus to school & back.
If it's not working she can go to a childminder friend who lives near her friend but I'm quite confident she can come home, get a snack & do homework independently.

Will he be ok walking home alone? If so, why will being in the house alone be any different/ any less manageable? If he’d arrive home at 4 I’m guessing it’d be a 30 minute to an hour journey, so I’d expect him to be ok at home unsupervised for a similar length of time. I’d probably let him come home and wait to do homework later if that’s the problem. Alternatively ask him to stay in the school library for an hour before going home.

My "friend's" (I use the term loosely) daughter had low level learning difficulties, young for her age. She went to a childminder until Year 8, at which point the poor kid went into care.

But it just goes to show, there are childminders that do take older kids on.

My dd could let herself in for a bit whilst I was at work in yr 6, certainly no problems in year 7.

My DS used to let himself in with a key in a keysafe. It worked well after an initial blip when I got home early and caught him watching the Simpsons whilst drinking a can of Stella.

From now to the end of yr6, my DD was allowed to leave after school club at 5pm and walk home - it's light - and I'd be home by 6pm. Giving her a chance to gain some independence.

From yr7, she would get the bus home, be back by 3:30. I changed my hours, and I'd be home between 4:45 and 5:00.

She's now yr9 and absolutely fine on her own for 2-3 hours.

I'd start working up to time at home alone - an hour at age 12 is fine for most NT children. After school care really isn't a thing and the secondary will promote independence.

Sorry, just read the special needs. Encourage after school clubs which usually run to 4pm? Should buy you some more time to get home.

@StScholastica

My DS used to let himself in with a key in a keysafe. It worked well after an initial blip when I got home early and caught him watching the Simpsons whilst drinking a can of Stella.

I mean that's terrible.

But what a boss move from DS.

I think my son's secondary school is open for breakfast from 7.45am and has a "homework club" in the library til 4 or 4.30pm.
It's not really childcare but it's somewhere they can be.

Maybe you could pay a 6th former to come home and hang out/help him with his homework?

My two are year 7 and 9, both happy to be home alone and if they went to the local school would come home on their own. I mainly work from home but because of the distance to their schools they go to the library until I could pick them up.

DD 14 could catch a bus but she chooses to wait for me to pick her up at whatever time my work meetings finish, between 4 and 6.

DS12 does school sports clubs three nights a week until 5.30 snd the nights he doesn’t he does homework in the library. Sometimes he takes the school bus home but it doesn’t leave until 5.30 so he does his sports or they have supervised prep in the library.

It works for us, they have little homework at home as it gets done at school.

I wouldn't particularly think it helps for Yr7s to stay for an after school club and then walk home / get the bus home later.
He would still be coming into an empty house, still have an hour to himself, and yet also have to travel home on his own rather than with others, which isn't ideal, and for a lot of the year, that is more likely to put him in the dark, or at least dusk, when there are more traffic accidents etc. At that age I preferred mine walking home at the same time as other dc.

I do agree with practicing leaving him alone in the house from now on, and him practicing walking home from Primary school for those for whom it is practical, but I still think quite a lot of Yr 7s would find it quite difficult to be home alone for 2 hours a night every night when they first start secondary, with everything else new they have to negotiate.
Maybe all your 11 yr olds are more mature than my eldest was ?

You might feel differently in 2 years’ time. Year six teachers tend to focus on helping them become more independent, mature and ready for secondary school.

If you're not home until 6pm and he finishes school at 3.30pm that's a lot of time to pass if something has happened to him on his way back from school. Or he takes those few hours to get into all sorts of mischief! Haha. Plus in the winter it's going dark at 3pm.

So I think wrap around care until year 9 (13-14yrs old) or as you say, you change your working pattern to be home at 4pm.

I think 11-12yrs and especially with special needs is a bit too young.

I've been a childminder for over 20yrs and have had many children from yrs7-9 coming to mine after school. It's by no means unusual.

Most don't need looking after, they just prefer somewhere to hang out after school where they aren't on their own. Some like the company, some need the company, a few anxious ones need someone available immediately to discuss their day with. I feed them, chill, chat, help with homework if needed.

What usually happens is that they come to me after school from Sept-April in yr7 then they might go home a day or two and to me for the rest, then gradually home more than me. During this time I am always at the end of the phone and will pick them up if they are worried about anything.

There is no right or wrong way, some children are more confident and/or independent than others, I've had anxious teens up to the age of 15 coming here after school.