What times do most gyms start their afternoon dev & team practices? Around here, they start at 3:30 or 4. This is so difficult with two working parents.
4:30 and 5:30 here. The four thirty group is older gymnasts and they go to 7:30 and the 5:30 group goes to 7:30.
@Bogwoppit-wow, you guys are lucky the buses pick them up!
I get off work at 3:30. Drive 20 minutes home. Pick kids up at 4:00. And then deliver kids to gym by 4:30.
The bus leaves from the English school, k -11, and as it drives right past the gym an extra stop was added five days a week. It is a lifesaver for gym parents and means the kids arrive safely.
Parents that work during practice start times, find people to carpool with. Their kids get picked up from school and then in return they pickup kids and drop them home.
we start 5:30 except Monday we start 5 and Friday 4:30. I guess the problem is the later you start the later you get home. The bus doesn't get our gymnast home until 4pm. On Friday we have to pick her up in order to get there in time.
4 p.m.--3:30 on Fridays. There's a lot of carpooling that goes on. With practices for the upper levels lasting 4 hrs, if they don't start by 4, it makes for too late a night!
Rec starts at 3.30pm, school gets out at 3.00 pm. Team starts at 4.30, for two or three hours depending on the level. A later start would mean a later finish and dd would be totally wiped out by that. We have a half hour commute home before we even start the dinner/bath/homework routine.
I think there is never going to be a perfect schedule. I work in the office quite a bit and am always hearing things like this.
Our rec start at 3:30, but we also have 4:00, 4:30, 5:00 and 6:00 classes here and there (most are 3:30 though). Our teams start at 5 or 5:30. I hear from team parents that they don't like getting out so late, but then others say they work and could never make it to an earlier time. It's hard for some to get there at the 5:00 time. For rec kids we do offer Saturday classes, but they are always the busiest then people complain that it's too busy. Also, preschool parents complain that our morning and early afternoon preschool classes are inconvenient because parents work or the kids go to daycare. When we tried offering them in the evening, it was not much of a success. Few people wanted their little ones in the gym with the big kids at the same time. You can't win!
DD's team (level 4) practices 3 days a week (MWF) from 4-7 pm. Level 5's are 4 days a week, 4-7, level 6's are also 4 days a week but go 4-8. Optionals are 5 days a week, Tues-Sat. We have kids (whose parents work) carpooling with teammates to make it to practice. There are a few parents who say they skip lunch so they can pick their kids up from school and bring them to gym.
All schools finish at 3:00PM. (Australian schools mainly go from 9:00-3:00). So we start our youngest classes at 3:30PM. Most come straight from school so they car pool with others from the same school if need be often with the working parents picking them up at the end, our little ones usually go from 3:30-5:00 so parents can often make the pick up.
The next age group up we usually start at 3:45 PM, teams start between 3:45-4:00PM. Older classes start later, and it can vary a lot. Most of our primary school aged kids (12 yrs and under) are finished by 7:30 PM, our teens are finished by 8:30PM and our adults classes are done by 9PM.
Our team has a staggered start - one group starts at 4 and one group starts at 5. Rec classes start at 4:15, but the 6:15 classes are by far the most popular ones. I think there is a wait-list for most of them.
Wow, my kids go to bed at 8 on school nights, so there's no way we could train at those later times! When we leave the gym at 6 on Wednesdays, there's still bath, dinner and homework to do (if she didn't get it finished before gym)! Friday night DD can train until 7 because the next day is no school and her bedtime is later. School mornings we are up at 6 a.m., so that's why bedtime has to be early. Around here our days tend to start and finish earlier than I typically see in North America.
We start at different times on different days Mondays are 3pm but some girls come in at 4. Fridays one groupis in from 1:30-6:30 and the rest 4-8. We have alotv of carpools aty our gym. The SAHM drive to gym and the others usually pick up and bring the kids home.