What do your teenagers do out of school?

[ProfessorGrammaticus]

I know there will be lots of different things! What I'm trying to get a handle on is the amount that they do on their own, and at what age. We are considering sending our DS to an independent school 5 miles away in a neighbouring borough of the city (not London). There is a school bus, but public transport is next to non-existent and I am pretty sure I would need to collect him if he had after-school activities. Obviously the friends that he makes will be mainly local to the school, not that many go from our area, and my concern is that it will be hard for him to meet schoolfriends independently after school and at weekends.

How much do you think this will matter, oh wise mumsnetters who are there before me?

Not sure how much it will matter in Y7, PG.

DS2 goes to school locally (selective grammar, shire county) a 10 minute walk away, but a lot of his friends come in from miles away. Y7/8 friendships seem to be pretty fluid but in any case the parent taxi service operates then IME; he made most of his best friends in Y9 and now, in Y10, they mostly get to and from each others' houses by public transport, or parents drop them off and then they go elsewhere by public transport.

HTH

Thanks - I know you're right about the first couple of years, I was thinking more about yr9 and onwards. It's the issue of most people not living on "our patch" IYSWIM that makes me wonder whether that would make it harder for DS to find his way around at that point, well, that and the lack of public transport.

What sorts of things do boys in yr10 do then?

Well, so far they have been getting either bus or train into local towns, for cinema or bowling or something; they have also had cycle excursions along the Leeds-Liverpool canal towpath to Leeds (we are about halfway along). There is an excursion planned to York by train one weekend soon; and they are talking about a camping weekend in the Dales or somewhere, but I think they are over-optimistic about that as your average campsite doesn't want a gang of unsupervised adolescents!

They do football training too one night a week, and our local sports centre does a Sat evening session called Time Out where they can use exercise equipment or the climbing wall or play 5-a-side or something.

Last Friday we had 3 sleeping over here; they spent the evening and Sat morning on X-box/internet/TV and then went to the cinema in the afternoon.

They organise all this themselves but parents are roped in for dropping off/picking up where necessary.

Ds walks a mile to school and a mile back, he's year 9, even when he goes to after school art club (he has company though, most children here walk to school from quite a young age).
On a Friday, he goes to youth club, and walks back home with a friend (arrives home about 9.45). Saturdays he will get the train to one of the bigger towns and go to the cinema, for something to eat, to terrorise the population at large. Sundays he will mostly spend with us.

ww - having fun trying to guess your son's school, think I've got it
My y9 still doesn't do much that isn't parent taxied - lots of activities take place at school in the evenings, we take him to rugby on sat and sun. If he has a free w/end he will (reluctantly) get the train into Leeds to meet some friends (and i still have to run him to the train station!), but prefers the parent taxi version
Has friends over to stay the night, stays at their house, organised by themselves, confirmed on phone parent to parent.

oh and btw, the dss independent school takes kids from a huge area, so even if they don't come from your area they may well noit be particularly local to the school.

Our ds (yr 8) is 5 miles from school. It's a grammar with a big catchment prob. 20 miles diameter.

Doesn't see his school friends every weekend, but maybe one weekend in 3 I'll drop him off in the town where the school is to meet a friend, they'll then mooch around there, go for a burger or whatever or sometimes get the train into a bigger town where there's a cinema.

Most weekends he sees his village friends who went to the same primary but are all now at the comp. They'll walk to each others houses to play PS3, go for bike rides together etc.

My dc are at a school that is over 20 miles away from our home. When desperate, they can walk to the station, get a train to our nearest town, and then either a lift or cab home. But, having decided that this was the right school for them, we decided that we would just have to accept we would be an 'on call' taxi service - certainly until they can drive. It is difficult, particularly as we both work full-time, but we have found ways around it.

The one benefit is that if necessary, the kids can board at school.

Thanks for your replies everyone. We do think that this is the right school for DS - this travel thing is the only down side to the school (or at least, the only one that we can see at this point, without having actually started at the school )

D3 is 16 and in year 11 at the moment she is staying after school to do course work for her GCSE's. In the past she has stayed for netball and Rehearsles for school productions. DD2 is 18 and at college. She often stays at college for reheasels.
They both go into town with their friends and also both belong Drama groups so go out in the evening to those.