How do you take time to take kids of primary school age to sports classes?

[dariodariodario]

Hello,
I still don't have kids, but planning to have soon. I've a lifestyle question, not even sure if this is the right space... I just choose this because it's about primary school age range...
So when I was a kid I used to do any kind of sports: from Judo, to swimming, to baseball... etc... The times of those classes were usually like 3-4 in the afternoon and either my mother or my father would take me to the places. they could do so, because at the time (now it does not work like that anymore), in Italy people working for the govt would work 6 days per week only in the morning. So having the full afternoon free meant they had plenty of time spend with me and do stuff (lucky b.... ).
Anyway, here I make a 9-5 life ... or 9.30 to 6 life... So how can people here find time to take kids to do sports (but it could also be piano classes or chinese classes, etc...), if both parents work?

In my experience they either don’t, or they have very very busy Saturdays.

If both parents work the kids do weekend classes rather than after school classes, judging by my children’s friends.

Our childminder takes DS1 to cricket and Beavers. Both start at 5:30 and finish about 6:30 so we collect.

When he does after school sport or clubs (starting about 3) then childminder takes and collects.

It means there’s an extra person to consult but if she possibly can take him she does.

Trying at the moment to arrange swimming for a weekend...that’s the other option.

You cant if both parents work full time.

Either one parent starts finishes early, or you have a childcare that includes sport or a nanny that takes them to sport or one parent is part time.

It's pretty obvious you cant have a child in childcare till 6 AND have time to do sport isnt it?

There are also holiday "camps" which aren't actually camps, particularly for sports but also dance, drama and all sorts of other things.

My son's school is great for after school clubs with local coaches in a variety of sports, not sure how unusual that is.

We also have an after school play scheme in the area where the workers will pick kids up from school, take them to clubs or swimming lessons, and then take them to the play scheme until their parents finish work.

We each work a day per week from home, and take DD to swimming and performing arts classes on those days (making up the work time in the evening). She also does football on Sundays. She's currently in Reception but from year 1 they do loads of clubs at school which also act as wraparound childcare. You could always get an afterschool nanny/childminder/au pair.

Music lessons are often offered at school and dc go out of class for lessons. Other activities might be available after school- so some schools might have a football club after school one evening a week. Some private schools might even have their own rainbow/ brownie group. Plus weekend activities such as swimming.

I work part time so I take my kids on my days off.

Our school has sports clubs but they finish at 4.15, so that doesn't work for wrap around childcare as most parents couldn't get there at that time and work.

I'm in awe of the scheme above where they take them to their swimming lesson!! Either the leisure centre is close or they must be charging nanny rates!? That's 1-1 care including changing!

They have to do activities at the weekend if you both work.
My DH works from home so is able to take my son to Scouts 1 night a week but otherwise activities are limited to weekend.

So what do you do then if your child is really talented and needs to attend training/practice during the week? And it isn't just a little jolly at the weekend activity anymore?

Some activities don’t start till later, beavers was 6.30 I think , taekwon do the same .

In reality infants in particular don’t need after school activities every night .

Your child will do sports at school.

Wait until you have a child and find out if he or she is interested in extra curricular sport before worrying about it! You're being a bit premature.

Our after school club will drop children at clubs local to the school and pick them up again.
One of my dc dances 4 times a week, two classes are after I have finished work and two are at the weekend. I see some grandparents helping to drop children off and parents sharing lifts to clubs to help each other out.

I'm in awe of the scheme above where they take them to their swimming lesson!! Either the leisure centre is close or they must be charging nanny rates!? That's 1-1 care including changing!

It's £7 for after school until 6pm and that includes pick up, travel to clubs etc. It's amazing. It's a not for profit scheme that was set up to provide low cost childcare. I am very appreciative of the fact that it's highly unusual.

Lots of younger kids do sports as an after school club at school (so works as childcare!) and others take place early evening or on Saturdays and Sundays.

So what do you do then if your child is really talented and needs to attend training/practice during the week? And it isn't just a little jolly at the weekend activity anymore?

If you’re like us, one of you works part time to facilitate it. I don’t know any of my children’s classmates who have both parents working full time, it would just be impossible with 12-15 hours of training to get them to.

Mine do activities at 6/6.30pm in the evening and on a Saturday morning.

If you want your child to do lots of 'extracurricular' activities, but both parents work full time, you either organise childcare accordingly (nanny, grandparent, someone who looks after the child after school and takes him/her to said activities); or you choose the school accordingly.
Many private schools have long school days with all sort of activities/options built in.
The differences between state schools are huge - in some you get daily before/after school activities you can choose from. Just make sure your post-after school activity childcare provider can deal with with that. Some after-school-clubs will only pick up at regular school finish time, some will be happy for the children to join after their after-school activity.

Even if you both work full time, it will make sense to organise a degree of flexibility in your work conditions, because there will be times when that activity is cancelled or this option has a show requiring parental attendance ...

My child's classes starts from 6. So if I worked 9-5, still be able to take them if I was working close enough from home.
I have been to the classes that started earlier too. Many children get dropped off by nanny/friend's parents/grand parents and picked up by parents later.

DS2 does football, fencing and drama after school but on the school site. He is allowed to leave after school club for these activities. He also does junior cricket on Saturday mornings. If it's a priority for you and your child, it will need to be something you consider when chosing a school.

A lot of people have an au pair in my area, including me. I am a stay at home mom, but my children attend French school so need help with French home work (me and dh don't speak French). The au pair also helps with the activities. For example, my son does football Wednesday and so does my daughter. It does not work out when my son finishes, I need to be dropping my daughter...so au pair does one and I do the other.

Most of the local activities tend to time their start times for the schools in the immediate area when they're marketing at the primary school age range - otherwise they're not going to get people to go along basically.

Tightest turnaround we have is a 3.15 school finish and 3.45 dance class which is near the school and everyone's in the same boat really. Other than that it's weekends often for some stuff - and jiggling around work schedules if possible or missing some stuff out and picking what's going to work for your circumstances (even down to a "I am NOT getting there for that time in workday traffic" type scenarios). There's enough different activities out there competing for the business that somewhere will have a timeslot that works for you.

Our day has football training Monday night and Friday night's plays Sundays and has Beavers Thursday night. He used to also have football training on Wednesday nights and he is very keen to start cricket too.

Basically I can't pursue my career because I can't guarantee me being able to travel my husband has a job that's very local which is good but with a second younger child one of us always has to be home for him it is a logistical nightmare at some points even with all of the training being local to within 15 minutes of home as most of it is at 6 o'clock it's very hard for us to maintain a healthy diet because it's always grabbing food on the go otherwise will be eating at 8 o'clock every night