How much music/drama/dance can you fit in a week

[gemmasky]

One of my daughters has just started high school and is doing well. However the biggest problem at the moment is fitting in homework around a performing arts time table that looks like this.
Monday: Piano (4:30-5:30pm).
Tuesday: drama (3:30-6:00pm)
Wednesday: dance (4:30-7:00pm)
Thursday: singing (4:00-5:00pm)
Friday: dance (5:00-7:00pm)
Saturday: drama (9:00-11:00am)
Violin (1:00-2:00pm)
Sunday: dance (2:00-4:30pm)
Can anyone help me with this homework problem.

I told DD if she didn't keep up with her homework I would cut her dance or drama down. She kept up.

You are forgetting the instrumental practice and transport time . TBH that seems perfectly manageable although busy as for at least 2 to 3 years she should n't have to be doing more than 5x 1 1/2 hours per week of homework. Come year 10 / 11 she might decide herself to drop something.

Like HSM I say not keeping up with homework something has to go. One thing I did was change music teachers so all singing/clarinet lessons are in the school holidays.
The only time I cut some slack is when she is in a big show for example there will be a week in March with combination of tech/ dress rehearsals and shows taking up around 30 hours in the week ( full 7 days so doesn't breach performance licence). School get a copy of the performance licence and then stop homework that week.

Mine did singing, piano and violin lessons at school. Not on a Saturday or after school. Dancing for DD2 was 3 times a week. Two after school and one on a Saturday morning but that was at Primary school. At senior school, dancing lessons were at the school. Two heavy lots of drama seems excessive. Mine did LAMDA and school plays at school. Several girls from school have gone to RADA, Central etc, so that amount of drama is fine if you are good. What are your DD's long term ambitions? I would try out for stage school!

She needs a day off.

My dd (as you know from another thread) is at vocational school. She leaves at 7.30 am in the morning & returns home at 7.45pm each night. Plus Saturday mornings is 3 hours of dance so she gets home at around 2pm.

She generally does half an hour of homework each night, an hour on Saturday afternoons. Then becsuse she has no school or dance on Sundays everything else is done then.

2 instruments plus singing is an awful lot on top of the dance/drama. I'd suggest she has to make a choice & drop something. Myvdd reluctantly dropped piano so she just does singing & lamda now.

Also 2 very long drama sessions per week is a lot unless she's rehearsing for a show.

I think that's a LOT.
Presumably, for all the music lessons, she also has to practice each instrument each day? Then there's traveling time, time for mundane things like eating, showering, sorting out kit for each of the activities / bag for school next day, etc. Then all the things you do now and then like go to the dentist, or get a haircut, etc.
I'm sure she will be able to fit in homework if she's motivated, but I think dc also need 'downtime' to just 'be', or chat with friends, etc.

It is a lot, but manageable if its what she wants to do.

My younger DS also has a busy musical schedule and thrives on it. We've actually found Y8 easier than Y7 homework wise.

My dd is in Y10 and has 2 hours dance every weekday evening except Thursday. Drama 9:00 to 3:30 on Saturday, and a dance scholarship in London every month on a Sunday.
She manages all of her homework as she is used to being organised, and is currently hitting her targets for her GCSE grades.
This term she has a dance show, a musical theatre show, Lamda and Ballet exams, plus 2 drama pieces at a local festival. ( though in fairness it's unusual to have quite so much in 1 term!)

Ultimately, it doesn't matter how much or little someone else does. Only what your dd can cope with.
Apart from the obvious physical benefits of dance, the busy week can encourage good time management skills.

If these are things she loves, then they should take priority. Here's a radical suggestion: if the music, drama and dance are very important to your dd then might home education be an option for her?

Because home ed is far more efficient in terms of the child's time, other subjects can be done in a fraction of the time which would be needed at school. It's also flexible in that whenever there's a performance coming up or the child is tired after one, you just scale back on other work and make it up at another time.

It isn't the main reason we HE, but it has meant my teen can do absolutely tons of extracurricular stuff without being shattered. Her schedule used to be similar to your daughter's but it didn't feel like a lot because it wasn't on top of a full day at school plus homework. She has HE friends who spend 25 hours a week on a sport they love, or practise a musical instrument intensively, without that dominating their lives. They still have plenty of time to see friends and to relax and do nothing.

Does your daughter recognise that there is a problem? If homework isn't a priority for her then if magically you find some more hours in the week it doesn't follow that they will be spent on homework.

As others have already said there's travel time and music practise to go on top of your list so you need to add that in to see the full picture. With two instruments and voice the practise time is going to be significant. If you block it out on a weekly planner you/she can see where the gaps are and where the homework/practise can fit in. It becomes a problem when those gaps are then used for going to town with friends/baking/Lego/watching cat videos before the homework has been done. (You can print off "revision timetables" that are blank templates for each day with a timeline down the side)

Apart from Wednesday and Friday there's space for at least an hour and a half's homework each night and double that at the weekend which is presumably enough. If she wants to do everything she will find a way but she has to accept that this has to include homework. We can find time for the things we want to do, it's the things we have to do but don't want to do that are the problem. (I wish I had £1 for every time I'd said that)

DS has had a busy music schedule all through school and school have been blissfully unaware of it. It is manageable if they are well organised and can plan ahead. Planning ls a learned skill like everything else; at 11 mine was incapable of it and would do whatever he wanted to do until what he needed to do became so urgent that it could no longer be ignored. Last minute late night homework panic is a valuable learning tool.

DD also managed to get quite a lot of homework done on car journeys.

Ds2 (year 9) does 15 hours of performing arts a week. He has to keep up with h/w - that's the deal. He also seems to find plenty of gaming time

I would argue that if the end game is stage, then a recognised stage school would be best. If the OP wants a lot of high grade GCSEs then, this amount of extra curricular compromises that. Drama schools do not need all the music and music conservatoires do not need all the drama. Dance schools want dance. Therefore, at some point, taking advice on which strand to pursue would seem to be a good idea or it could be "Jack of all trades and master of none". Thinking about what future intentions are would help and very very few people can home educate at secondary level. It can add to the stress for the parent, not lessen it, if they do not feel capable.

I think the violin looks the definite odd one out as it is an orchestral instrument - first and foremost - unless you are a totally gifted virtuoso. Singing and piano are obviously useful together. I really would look at a proper stage/dance/music school for the future. Or follow the strands that actually lead to a definite degree or specialist school/college place. That would still mean a lot of work to get the required exam grades, even with a reduced amount of extra curricular. What exams is your DD actually taking?

I know the school at Tring has mostly boarding students due to the very full days. They used to do their GCSE subjects in the afternoons. Not sure what they do now but the structure of these schools is designed around performing arts lessons and that is far better, in my view, than adding everything on to a school day.

Wow, and I thought my DD had a full schedule! She is in Y9 now, and has just dropped piano as a subject. She got up to grade six distinction, but as she rightly said, "I can pick up a song book and play, I don't need to do more" She has also dropped singing as well. She did LAMDA drama for four years but has recently combined her drama with singing by choosing LAMDA musical theatre. She still does lots of dance, about nine hours a week.
My point being, that kids will let you know if it's all too much. It's hard to judge what they can handle by our standards, because they are all shiny and new, with brand new batteries, whereas we don't have their reserves of energy and enthusiasm. If you want a brace of A* GCSEs, then a massively full timetable of extras might impinge on this.
Earlier this year, my DD was going for a time-consuming dance scholarship as well as taking two dance exams which required extra exam tuition on top of normal lessons. This was all whilst taking mock academic scholarship exams. Although she tried very hard, her academics did suffer, and she would have just missed out on an academic scholarship if the mocks had been for real, but she studied hard, turned it around and got both scholarships to an excellent, highly competitive independent school.