Extra curricular activities in secondary

[upsideup]

Eldest dd is starting secondary in september, at the moment she is doing 14 hours of extra curricular activities every week.

Did anyone's DC manage to keep on top of school and their out of school activities? Or did the struggle?

I too am wondering this. The 'out-of-the-house' time spent on activities is currently 11 hours, plus another 2.5 hours on music practice. Plus occasional additional weekend time for concerts/shows/events. In our case this is spread over several different activities. DD doesn't want to stop anything. I don't know whether to just let her carry on and see if she falls over come September or say now that one at least must stop.

DS currently spends nearly 18 hours on the 'out-of-house activities (journey is not included), plus occasional weekend time for matches, concerts and events. We already made a bit of adjustments last year as one activity was getting too demanding. He is stopping all apart from the weekend activities (10 hours) when he starts secondary in September. We are feeling very sad about it as all the activities are such important part of his life. But I'm very afraid logistically it's difficult to carry on.

Got to admit that DD (now Yr9) had to drop a load of outside activities due to the fact that she was just so tired in Yr 7. Also pressure of homework etc. But she is lucky that they have a lot of lunch time activities that she did instead. (1hr 20 for lunch). She has started to take on some new evening activities now she is older but still only Tue & Friday evening. She always kept going with hockey on Saturday or Sundays.
In Yr 7 she just wanted to come home from school and relax (once homework was done). There is no way she could have kept up with her YR6 activities.

Having said that DS is not going to stop the activities he enjoys but the venue. He is going to carry on the same sports at school. Not sure the quality but assume there will be lots of advanced players at the relatively large school. Swimming will be difficult to carry on though as there is no swimming pool at his new school. I am thinking to find a club running on Sunday but haven't found any for advanced swimmers yet. I don't know if it exists really!

DD has taken up activities as she has got older - Air Cadets 2 nights a week 7-9.30pm and all of one weekend day generally. Then piano - one lesson a week with 10 hours practise a week on top, Art - graffiti project one night a week and a long weekend away every other month... on top of that she is doing Art and Music (as well as English lit) at A level - both VERY high in coursework needs.

and to top it all, she now has a boyfriend she wants to see twice a week and one day at the weekend - things are going to have to change...

oops posted too soon

when she was at primary she had the same sort of level of activity, but Y7 to Y9 she withdrew from most - except piano - the workload at secondary demanded it.

We have gone the other way. DD did virtually nothing in primary, now in year 9 she does about 12 hours a week of extra-curricular stuff a week, with just rehearsals. We are coming up to a show week it will be about 23 hours a week. All her choice. I am very strict the homework has to be done or activities get dropped.

Depends how much longer the school day is compared to now, including travelling (my DC's school day actually got shorter when they started secondary) and how much homework the school gives. 14 hours would have easily fitted in around school in Y7. The DC were tired because of the unaccustomed walking round school all day, but seemed to get a new lease of life when doing something different.

I guess the other thing to bear in mind is whether she might like to drop some of her current activities in favour of picking up new ones at secondary.

DD does rowing training 4 times a week and Guides once a week. She could do with spending more time on her homework but she wouldn't do more if she was at home - she'd just be on her phone. I think it depends on the type of activity as well - how much do the DC enjoy it and how pressurised is it - there's a difference between someone doing high pressured competitions and someone just keeping fit in the company of their friends.

My yr 7 daughter swims almost everyday as well as competing which can take up a whole weekend. It's tough but we manage if we are organised.

It entirely depends on the child and the amount of homework the school sets

DS school set very little hw in Y7; DD school sets quite a lot.

DD however still does plenty outside school: music lessons for 2 instruments, plays in three bands, netball practice & Guides.

Our experience has been that DD was able to continue and later increase the time she spent on out of school activities, her time management, and ability to prioritise improved, and these are great life experiences.

With the inevitable friendship group squabbles, it was always great to have different out of school friends with shared interests.

We've had to drop a couple of activities in y7 mainly due to days, travel and homework (about an hour a night).

But then we picked up 2 more because one was friday night and one on a Saturday so more do-able.

• life skills not life experiences (though there were some of them too!)

Our DS has kept up all his activities. It helps that he has Tuesday nights off so can get on top of homework then, also he often has time after sports etc to do some homework if there’s something more pressing. As he would just be spending more time on his iPad if he was home I’m pretty happy with how it’s worked out. Definitely an individual thing though, he loves his sport so is motivated to get homework done in order to be able to go to the sessions.

Mine both kept up their primary schedule from year 7 despite a longer school day (much longer journey) but were very tired for the first term or so. Each does 5-6 different things a week totalling about 8-9 hours plus some travel.

Thankyou for the replies
At the moment DD wants to go to a preforming arts college at 16 (I know she may change her mind but she doesnt), all the clubs she does at the moment involve what she wants to do as a career and she definately doesnt want to give anything up and as they are all things she is really passionate and talented in I dont want her to have to give anything up. But I know she is going to prioritise her clubs over school every time, shes been lucky that she has done really well throughout primary school, always been near the top of the class and never needed to put in any extra effort for school subjects, thats most probably going to change now and she is going to stuggle having to devote time to keeping on track at school. Her social life is also going to start taking up more time and is something she again also prioritise before school work.

upsideup my eldest (now Year 9) was doing a lot of extra-curricular hours in Year 6 across several different activities, mostly sport - from memory karate, cricket, football, swimming, basketball, tennis - and he loved all of them. The biggest problem we had was that the coaching got more serious from 11+. Sports that he was doing once a week suddenly wanted him to train twice a week, and weekend fixtures became more serious and started to clash. He had to make some tough choices.

Now he is in Year 9 and plays just 2 team sports, though at top-of-national-league level. He trains four nights a week and usually has weekend fixtures - sometimes on both Saturday and Sunday and they can be up to a 2 hour drive away. On top of that he does some after-school fixtures (for school teams) and dips in and out of other after-school clubs (luckily his school is quite flexible like that).

Nevertheless he still manages to fit in an hour+ a day playing computer games, and an hour+ a day socialising, either online or face-to-face with his friends, as well as homework (he never seems to have very much of that, but still seems to do very well at school).

So, I guess what I'm saying is you have to be ready for things to evolve, but unless you're sending your DC to a homework hothouse there will be plenty of time for extra-curricular.

I wish I had done so much when I was that age. I think I spent most evenings doing homework and watching repeats of sitcoms on tv.

"With the inevitable friendship group squabbles, it was always great to have different out of school friends with shared interests."

This ^^ is so very very important.

I'm feeling quite inadequate because DD didn't do many after school activities. I did restrict it to 2 or 3 a week, and by the time she started secondary school she had absolutey zero interest in any activities other than seeing her friends.

She is currently in year 13, and apart from being a Brownie leader she is too busy with A level homework and revision (and just being too tired) to do anything else.

I have also been wondering whether more time not doing activities would just mean more computer or phone time. DD finds some activities are good stress relievers and she definitely needs that. Some things can't be replicated at school (one is a sport not offered) but one activity is easily accessible and I am strongly encouraging that one to get the heave-ho. Perhaps we'll leave it at that and see what happens with the rest when we get there.

Unfortunately we have to make a decision fairly quickly as re-enrolment signup/payment almost always happens a way early. We've already had submitted a re-enrolment form for one of DS's activities for the next academic year as the deadline for the submission was mid March. Some activities are hard to get back once you stop so taking a break for a couple of terms is not always an option. His new school seems to set quite a lot of homework from day one (1-2 hours daily). So we are likely to try to transfer most of his activities to in-school clubs to reduce the hustle of ferrying him around after school.

More homework, longer journey to and from school, longer school days, and commitments and duties as a scholar sound very tiring already!

Op, my DD started at a performing arts school last September aged 16. She now has very long days, studying for for 3 A levels in the morning, then vocational studies in the afternoon then supper and prep, followed by more rehearsing if there’s a show or auditions coming up.
Plus living away from home and responsibility for her own laundry and buying own toiletries and stationery.
The 5 years of time management learned through the extra curricular drama and dance, and taking homework into dance studios or drama rehearsals has all proved extremely helpful!

Agree on the friendship thing. My DD went to a secondary school where she knew no one and although she has settled in and made lots of friends her swim club are her constants and she adores them having known some of them for years. Also she goes to a girls school but swims with boys and girls

I think it depends on the child.

DD has maintained 10-14 hours of dance, plus being in 2 school sports teams with fixtures and training, throughout her time at secondary. She is now in Y10, managing coursework-heavy GCSEs (Art and Textiles) and D of E as well (though much of that is based around her dance school - so she helps with younger classes etc).

She is bright, driven, and phenomenally organised. Luckily, most of her dance hours are during the week, so she does have much of each weekend to catch up and spend longer on her art homework.

DS has had more of a portfolio of activities - sport of different types and music. He now does as many hours of music as DD does of dance, but it is condensed into fewer sessions, so he has 'nights when he works' and 'nights when he plays music'. Again, weekends are when he catches up, and it helps he no longer plays club football.

I would say that it has helped them both socially and organisationally, and it has made their potentially problematic 'teenage years' very smooth as they have simply not had time to get involved in any activities that could get them into trouble.

However, they do both find academic work fairly straightforward. A child who really really needed to work at every lesson and every homework would possibly need to cut back in terms of hours.