All-Day School Care from 2026: What Changes for Parents and Homework

Imagine it's 1 August 2026. On your kitchen table lies a letter from the school authority with the subject line "Registration for All-Day Care." Next to it, a stack of information leaflets from the after-school centre, the school itself, and an independent provider. Your child starts first grade in September. You flip through the papers and realise: what's being announced here has never existed before. Eight hours of care per day, a legal entitlement, guaranteed by law. Sounds like relief. But it also sounds like: "What does this mean for our daily routine, our homework, our family life?"

If that scenario feels familiar — or if you're about to experience it this year — this article is for you.

What exactly changes

The legal right to all-day care in primary school was passed by the German Bundestag in 2021. Implementation is beginning now — in stages, because schools, municipalities, and providers cannot create places for all children overnight.

Here is the timeline:

• School year 2026/27: All first-graders are entitled to an all-day place.
• School year 2027/28: Year 1 and Year 2.
• School year 2028/29: Years 1 to 3.
• School year 2029/30: All primary school children from Year 1 to Year 4.

"Entitlement" is a strong word in law. It means: if your child belongs to the target group, the municipality must provide a place — not "will endeavour to" or "subject to availability." Anyone who does not receive a place can take legal action, similar to the childcare entitlement that has existed since a child's first birthday.

The 8 hours apply on working days. Including school holidays — that is the difference from traditional school wraparound care. If you've experienced the nursery-to-school gap — school finishes at 11:30, parents work until 17:00, no one picks the child up — something structurally significant is changing for you.

What is actually on offer

"All-day" is not a uniform concept. In practice, there are at least three models running side by side:

• Open all-day (OGS): Morning lessons, with voluntary afternoon care provided by the school or a third-party organisation. Parents commit to registration for a full school year.
• Structured all-day: Teaching and support are distributed throughout the entire day. Traditional homework often disappears entirely — replaced by supervised learning time within school hours.
• After-school centre at the school: A separate facility, often in the school building, with its own homework supervision and holiday programme.

What the afternoon offer includes varies enormously by state, city, and individual provider. Typically you will find:

• Lunch (usually charged separately, ranging from €3 to €5 per day depending on the state)
• Homework or study time (usually 30–60 minutes, supervised)
• Remedial lessons in maths, German, or language support
• Leisure activities: sport, art, music, sometimes with external clubs
• Holiday care with trips, project weeks, and workshops

Sounds good on paper. The reality: quality varies enormously. Some schools have strong concepts, well-established teams, and genuine support. Others — especially where staff shortages are acute — operate more as supervised childminding with lunch and toys.

Advantages from a parent's perspective

Let's be honest: for many families, the legal entitlement is a genuine relief. Not because all-day care is automatically better than a free afternoon — but because it becomes predictable.

Work-life balance. In more than 70 per cent of families with primary-school children, both parents work. Until now, the transition from nursery (often open until 17:00) to primary school (often finishing at 11:30) was a logistical break. Parents cut their hours, juggled grandparents, negotiated special arrangements with employers. The legal entitlement adjusts the system to make it possible for both parents to be in work — without acrobatics.

Predictable structure. When your child has fixed hours at school — including study time, lunch, and play — the afternoon at home is for family, not for homework arguments. Research on all-day care shows that many parents experience the family evening as more relaxed.

Social connections. Children who stay at school in the afternoon spend more time with peers, build friendships beyond their own class, and learn to fit into groups. For shy only children, this can be a real gain.

Educational equity. Children from families with fewer resources benefit disproportionately from structured support in the afternoon. This is one of the stated goals of the reform: to narrow the educational gap between children with and without support at home.

The honest list of weaknesses

So much for the theory. In practice, there are points you should think about before registering.

Staff shortages. This is the biggest unresolved issue. Many German states are already short of childcare workers and qualified pedagogical staff. The legal entitlement will require thousands of additional positions. What happens if they aren't there? Larger groups, less individual attention, greater burden on existing staff. The German School Portal and several education researchers have repeatedly pointed out that the reform could fail — not because of money, but because of people.

Quality varies between states. North Rhine-Westphalia has years of experience with OGS, Berlin is restructuring, Bavaria is partly only getting started, Saxony has a different model. If you move or compare, you will find that "all-day care" in Cologne and "all-day care" in Munich are two different worlds.

Long days for children. A first-grader who leaves home at 7:30 and comes back at 16:30 has a working day like an adult. Some children thrive. Others are exhausted, irritable, need space to retreat — space they cannot find in a group. "Others manage just fine" doesn't help here — every child has their own level of exhaustion.

Less time for individual hobbies. Music school, sports club, horse-riding, chess with grandpa — if the afternoon is taken up by school, these activities either shift to early evening or disappear entirely. Some schools integrate club offerings; many do not.

Pressure on family life. When children and parents only come together at 17:30 — tired, hungry, full of things to say — the evening becomes the critical zone. This is exactly where it will be decided whether all-day care brings relief, or whether the conflict zone has simply been moved.

What happens to homework?

This is the question we are asked most often. And the answer is: it depends.

In structured all-day models, homework is often abolished entirely. Instead, there are learning periods within the school day — with teachers or pedagogical staff who provide direct support. When your child arrives home, the exercise book is ideally already done. That is what many parents dream of.

In open all-day models (OGS), there is usually a homework session of 30 to 60 minutes in the afternoon. What that means in practice depends heavily on the school. Best case: the child has a quiet place, an adult to ask, completes the work and understands it. Reality at many sites: too many children per supervisor, no space for individual explanations, assignments are "done" — but not necessarily understood. What doesn't get resolved comes home.

In after-school centre models, homework time is a fixed block where staff guarantee presence, but rarely go into subject matter in depth. The system says: "Done" — and releases the child into free time.

Important: ask explicitly when you register. "Will homework be fully completed here, or should we expect to do some at home?" — that question saves you many arguments at the dinner table later.

When homework support at school is not enough

Here is the uncomfortable reality we face daily when parents write to us: even in all-day care, gaps remain.

The homework may be ticked off. Your child brings the exercise book home, everything filled in, the staff have signed it. But in the evening, while practising reading aloud, you notice that your child still doesn't recognise the word. A maths test reveals that the concept never really stuck. You ask: "Did they explain it to you at school?" — "Yes, but I didn't understand everything, and then we had to move on."

This is not a criticism of the staff on site. When one educator is supervising 18 children at once and three of them are stuck on the same fraction problems, deep individual explanation is physically impossible. They can manage the process, they can ensure all children are occupied. But they cannot explain the same task 18 times in parallel in a way that makes it click for every child.

This is exactly where an additional tool that is always available and never gets impatient can help. Apps like Gennady are built for exactly this gap: you photograph the task that wasn't understood, the child hears a child-friendly explanation, can ask for it to be repeated, and understands the method — not just the answer. Not a replacement for human support. But a backup for when the school system couldn't provide the depth needed.

Making the right decision

Registering for all-day care is not a small decision. It structures your child's daily life for an entire school year. Before you sign, it is worth taking a sober look at the concrete offer.

Start with your child: how long can it concentrate today? How does it handle large groups? Does it need a lot of quiet time, or does it thrive in the bustle? There are children who are happy with eight hours of school. And there are children who need a quiet sofa after five hours.

Then look at the actual offer on site. Not what the website promises — what you see when you visit. Who opens the door when you ring the bell? What are the rooms like? Where do the children do their homework? Who helps them?

And plan a Plan B. If the model doesn't fit, what can you adjust? Fewer hours in all-day care? An external holiday programme? One day a week at home? The legal entitlement does not mean you have to take the full 8-hour option. You can choose two or three days of all-day care if the provider offers that.

5 questions to ask before you register

Whatever the school or after-school centre: these five questions will give you a realistic picture in 15 minutes. Write them down before you go.

1. "How many children does one member of staff supervise during homework time?" — Ratios below 1:12 are acceptable; anything above 1:18 is childminding, not support.
2. "Will homework be fully completed here, or will we need to do some at home?" — Ask for concrete examples. "Usually" doesn't help; "for my child X, it worked like this" does.
3. "How is support organised for a child who is struggling?" — Are there small groups, individual support, coordination with the class teacher? Or is it left open?
4. "What opportunities do children have to withdraw and be alone?" — Eight hours in a group is tough. A quiet room, a reading corner, a garden for some solitude makes a difference.
5. "How is the holiday programme specifically organised?" — "One trip per week" and "qualified staff at all times" are two different worlds. Ask for weekly plans from last year.

If you get clear answers to all five questions, the offer is probably good. If the answers are evasive or you feel like you're talking to a wall, trust your gut.

What remains — even in all-day care

One thing will not change, even with the legal entitlement: you are and remain the most important learning companion for your child. Not in quantity, but in quality. Even if your child has spent eight hours at school, you want to know what is on its mind. You want to hear the story it wants to tell. You want to read aloud from the book in its school bag. And you want to be there when the hard task wasn't understood in all-day care after all.

That was already true in 2026. And it will still be true in 2030. The legal entitlement changes the structure. It does not change the relationship between you and your child.

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