Children learn informally through good quality play and social interactions in out of school care- through the wide range of activities and opportunities which should be provided by OSC services, children develop and grow. By using the SHANARRI Wellbeing indicators, services must now demonstrate how children are achieving within their service, and this is something which will be considered when inspecting services.

OSC services by their very nature are child-centred and will take into account the wishes of children, however, when it comes to learning and development services must recognise that children can only know what they like through individual experience. It is therefore the service's responsibility to ensure that children have new opportunities and experiences they otherwise would not have; furthermore, services also have a duty to expand not only children's horizons but also those of staff.

Research (Chanfreau, Tanner, Callanan, Laing, Skipp and Todd, 2016) has shown that after school clubs have a positive effect on education attainment in particular for the most disadvantaged children in society. Chanfreau et al said, “Among disadvantaged children, after school club emerged as the only organised activity linked to child outcomes; participation was linked to both higher KS2 attainment and prosocial skills.”

Gitit Kadar –Satat , in her doctoral thesis, found that Out of School Care and Activities particularly benefited low income children in terms of improving attainment.

Kadar-Satat, G. (2015). Participation in Out-of-School Activities and the Socio-Economic Gap in Children's Academic Performance. Unpublished PhD Thesis. The University of Edinburgh.