Realistic expectations for 11 year old

[Thindle]

Hello everyone. My DD is currently in Y6, I’m a single parent, with limited local family support. I’m trying to figure out exactly how our schedule will change when DD moves onto senior school next year.

Our preferred school is the local independent school, it’s not massively academically pushy and I think that’s the right environment for DD. It’s about 30 minutes walk away but DD could easily do it on bike in 10/15 minutes. The school day is 8.20-3.45 in Y7-Y9. I have to leave for work at 7.30 latest, right now DD goes to breakfast club. I am not normally home from work until 5.30 but occasionally this can be closer to 6. The school has after school sports clubs and a homework club which we have been told is very popular that run until 5pm. We have been told to expect about 5 hours a week of homework in Y7 and 8.
Assuming DD continues with the same hobbies she does now, she would have two training sessions before school in the week 6-7, I would drop her off at these then pick her up and take her home before I go to work. After school she would have 4 nights of activities in the winter, maybe 5 in the summer term only. Mostly 7-8.30 sort of times.

What I’m thinking right now is on a day where she doesn’t have training in the morning, she would get up around 7, shower, have breakfast, probably while I’m leaving for work, then she would be left to lock up and leave for school around 7:50depending on if she was walking or cycling.
In the evening she would stay for homework club or some sort of after school club most days, leave at 5 and be home around 5:15/5:30, so probably a little earlier than me on the average day but potentially up to an hour before me on a day where I’m not home straight away. I’d aim to make sure there was always a meal in the fridge she could put in the microwave if I happened to not be home by 5:45/6. Once I got home I’d either make dinner or if she’d already eaten take her to her hobbies.
On days with training in the morning, I’d wake her around 5:40, take her to training then we’d be home for 7:10 and she could shower/eat breakfast.

While I know the hobby schedule sounds intense, DD copes much better when she is being active and occupied, she gets lots of free time on the weekend and if we ever felt it was no longer working she would be able to drop them very easily.

My concern lies in DD being an August baby so she will be just turned 11 when she starts senior school and I’m not sure if it’s realistic to expect her to be able to finish breakfast, lock up and leave on time without support in the morning, or to come home, and potentially have dinner alone if I’m running late so she can still make it to her hobbies. I grew up with the a SAHM so never experienced this. She is generally sensible and I’d like to say she is mature for her age.

AIBU to think these are realistic expectations?

I think it’s reasonable, but I would want her to have a contingency plan if something went wrong when you’re not there. Is there a neighbour she could call on in emergency?

I'm wondering about similar things for my yr6 son. I'm also a lone parent and would like to increase work hours once he's in secondary.

My concerns in your shoes would be dd getting home (sometimes on a bike) in the dark without me. Suppose it depends how safe your roads are.

The training day sounds full on with such an early start, but you know your child best.

I think locking up is achievable at that age. You can always get a ring camera and check footage. There's probably other tech ways of checking.

Sounds like a lot, but you can but try if she wants to do all of it. If she's not ready for evening hobbies you just miss them that day and hope she figures it out for the next time. If she's late for school she will be in trouble so will figure that out pretty quickly! Does the door lock when you shut it or do you have to turn the key? I think she may well find there is too much to do, with homework as well, you want to make sure she doesn't fall behind with school work, there may be spellings to learn and reading to do on top of actual homework.

We have friends on our street so if there were any issues, lost keys etc. she could go to one of them. I was also thinking I could install a key safe so if she did lose her keys she wouldn’t be locked out (or maybe even encourage her to put her key in there after locking up, instead of taking it to school).

We put a key safe on our house (round the back) as a couple of times ours forgot their keys and it was useful to have a backup one in the key safe.

I used to get mine to text me once they were at school so I had confirmation they’d left.

what about if she is ill?

you may need to put rules in place about not using the cooker if it is gas. Mine had a few accidents (mostly while I was there!)

in winter she (and you) may prefer to come home earlier as it’ll be lighter. Consider hi viz for bike if she’s cycling.

A Ring camera is a great idea in this scenario.

It is a pretty quiet road she would be cycling home on, though it does make me nervous too. Maybe in the winter we’d be better looking at her hopping on one of the local buses? They are a bit pointless as they would just take her further up the town, she’d still have to walk from there and it would increase the journey time, it would cut out any time on main roads though. Most of she can cycle on residential streets.

Get a key chain so the key is clipped onto something like a belt loop, button hole or school bag so it can't get dropped?

My DC’s senior school opens very early in the morning. They can access the library to do homework or the canteen for breakfast. Is that a possibility? It seems like a lot to ask of an 11 year old to potentially have both breakfast and dinner on their own. My 11 year old would be capable of it, but would not like it.

If she is ill it would be the same as it is now, I’d either take the day off or my mum would do the 2 hour drive over and look after her, my mum works part time still so on her off days she is happy to come and look after DD (really the earlier we know if DD is unwell the better for this situation though).

Find out when the school opens. For example DDs school starts at 8.30, butvthe gates open at 7.45 and the cafeteria opens for breakfast at 8.00.

The earliest they can access the school library is 8am, so if I dropped her off she would still be about 20 minutes too early to go in.

I do think it’s a lot of expectations without scaffolding or support. The first half of year 7 is brutal with so many new expectations, timetables and rules. She’ll also have a lot to carry potentially so will she be able to bike or will she need to walk?

Is she mostly able to get herself ready for school independently now or does she need a lot of support? I’d try to phase this in as much as possible and drop back support to see how she copes. I’d also install the lockbox now and ask her to locks the door and open the door every time she leaves to get in the habit of doing this.

is ther anyway you could work from home more or have a later start for the first few months (might not be possible I know).

I would do some dry runs while she’s still in year 6, is she able to get herself home from school at the moment or is it too far away?

Even if you are still collecting her, I would have her opening and locking the doors in the mornings/evenings with you there to support if anything went wrong. Same with food, have her make up her own meal from the fridge a few times with you there so you can assist the first few times if needed.

The summer holidays will be a good time to get her used to her new routine with you around in case of any problems.

Based on my experience, the bigger issue would be the mornings, but you'd be there to make sure she actually gets up so that's something!

In the evenings, substantial snack or pre-made meal is definitely the answer, especially if she wants to eat before her activities. DS often prefers to eat after - so he'll have a fairly substantial "snack" at around 5 (things like crumbed chicken breasts/ fish fingers in the air fryer on a roll/wrap, scrambled eggs etc), but then have dinner at 8ish or so when he gets home.

The other issue when she first starts out is the relatively long walk/cycle if the weather is bad. Our commute is so painless that we don't have this problem but it was a factor when considering schools and choosing between the closer one and the further away one. We realised that she was more than able to get to and from school, but that when the weather is really bad it would probably be really challenging, particlarly in year 7 or even year 8, and DH and I wouldn't be able to come and collect her most days. And interestingly, for DS, he walks home now no matter what but in year 7 in the winter we definitely went to collect him if he got home from say an away match or whatever - he just didn't feel happy walking home in the dark/cold/wet then whereas now he just sort of gets on with it. I think it will be the same for DD when she starts.

oh, and 100% get a key safe. Absolute godsend!!!!

Right now she mostly gets ready herself, wakes up to her alarm, gets showered and dressed with limited support from me. I could potentially in the summer term remove her from breakfast club to get her into the habit of going to school alone as her current school is only 5 minutes away on the bike? Or maybe I should do that after Christmas so she is used it still being a bit dark, I worry about her being out in the dark though, I know that is ultimately unavoidable in the longer term though.

My parents left for work earlier than me from yr6 onwards and it was fine. Occasionally things went a bit wrong - forgotten keys or running late. I found ways around it. It was a good way to get a bit of independence and learn how to organise myself.

We don’t really have a closer school unfortunately, for some reason all the schools in our town, both state and private are in the south of the town, we are more northern. I imagine there will be quite a lot of kids out walking to school in the same direction though? Her prep school is quite small, only 16 kids in her year and I only know of one other child going to the same senior school, a lot of the parents are aiming for private or academically selective schools, which we decided would be an awful fit for DD. We have applied for the state school both in our town and the next town over just in case we change our mind but they don’t really change the routine at all.

I have a yr6 child and he does this already, not every day, but most days.

It's fine, but I always feel a bit guilty about it.

Does he walk/cycle to school while it’s still dark? How does he find that? I think that’s what makes me the most nervous with DD! I could definitely pull her out of breakfast club/late care at after school club so she is coming home and going to school on her own some days but it makes me so nervous! I’m not generally over-protective, DD has been going to sleep away camps and flying as an unaccompanied minor since she was 7 and that has never made me as nervous as this does!

He does occasionally, if he has a club after school, but I mostly try and collect.

He will have to in secondary school though.

I've actually been impressed with how capable DS is at getting himself sorted in the mornings (he even feeds the dog and turns the dishwasher on before he leaves!) he can make basic meals for himself too.

It's been great to see how proud he's been of himself with his new found independence. And coming home to find him all dressed for his club, eating beans on toast he's prepared himself makes me feel both proud and a bit crap all at once!

The answer might be to explore lift clubs with other parents, although i appreciate that's tricky as you might struggle to reciprocate - perhaps you can find other ways eg by taking children to activities or similar?

My nephews go to a school in the village over from theirs and my sister and two neighbours have a good system going with lifts for certain days.

Another option that quite a few parents I know with the longer commute do to manage this is occassional use of taxis. So if the weather is truly awful, for example, DD is allowed to order a taxi home or similar?

Maybe be something we have to look at more once DD has started secondary, she might find some local friends at the school who we can organise something with. I could help with hobby runs but the group sports she does are all in our town so maybe less likely to need help dropping kids off, the sports which are further away she tends to do as privates. Maybe in the summer with athletics though, as it’s a town away and quite popular.

I think it's a bit much to expect an 11yr old to lock up and get herself out to school. I'm sure she's capable it just seems a bit sad and lonely and a lot to expect of her. Would she know what to do if everything didn't go to plan? Or she was unwell for example.

An hour or so in the evening seems different as it's just a snack and some TV until you get home. I do think expecting her to heat and eat dinner on her own is a bit lonely for a 11yr old too.