Activities after school

[Jayelle20]

Hi everyone,

Just curious — how many (if any) after-school activities do your DC do?
My DS is in Year 1, and I’m thinking of signing him up for two (football and guitar), but I’m not sure if that might be a bit much.

What do your kids do after school?

Just to add these are activities he has requested to do!

DD is y1 and does ballet and Rainbows. She also has swimming lessons. Most kids in her year do a couple of things after school e.g football and rugby (not including swimming lessons as most seem to do them at weekends round here!)

If they are things he has asked to do, let him try! You can always adjust if you think he is too tired/doesn't enjoy etc.

I think 2 sounds good for that age so long as they don't get too tired after school.

When DS was in Y1 he did swimming (weekend), rugbytots (weekend), gymnastics (weekend, after swimming), tennis (4:30 after school), second language club (4:30 after school), and a couple of afternoons in after school club while we were at work (some of which were organised clubs, some of which were free play - depended on what was on offer and what he fancied doing).

He seemed quite happy with all of that! Not particularly tired. Home before 6pm each day, then dinner bath and bed by 8pm. He didn’t have to get up until 8am, which helped.

We limited to two so she had some time at home just to play instead of being in an organised activity.

The two were swimming lessons and Rainbows.

My Yr 1 DS just does swimming at the weekend and one non-sport activity after school one day a week. Not as much as others but he was v tired in Reception and seems to be managing this fine so I'm reluctant to push

Mine have always done activities 4-5 days after school and are fine with it but others get tired after a full day at school so it's very individual. It also depends how active and long the activity is (music lessons where they sit for half an hour is different from an hour of football) and travelling, and if they do wraparound care on other days. Most of our activities were on school site and dcs taken there by staff, so they just got picked up 50 mins later than normal school time, and home by 4.30pm. We don't need wraparound so they get more chill time at home compared to dcs doing no activities but in wraparound care until 6 every night.

Most Year 1 children can manage one or two after-school activities, but it really depends on the child. My DS did two at that age (a sport and a quieter hobby) and it worked well as long as the sessions weren’t on back-to-back days. Football and guitar sound like a nice balance. If you’re unsure, you could start with one and add the second later — you’ll know pretty quickly whether he still has energy after school or if it’s too much.

I think that different kids cope better with different levels of extracurriculars. I know kids the same age that need a lot of down time after school and others that get bored very easily and prefer to be doing lots of activities.

I'd be tempted to start one activity, see how you get on and then consider adding in another.

My eldest did swimming, tennis and gymnastics at that age (and now, age 11 does completely different hobbies). My youngest didn’t do anything at that age- he had no interest and hated swimming lessons (we have taught him). Now at age 8 he happily plays football for a team.

All children are different.