Children aged nine to twelve years in Outside School Hours Care in Australia

Abstract

Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) Services provide care, leisure and education for children aged five to twelve years in the hours before and after school and during vacation times. The number of children using OSHC in Australia has grown significantly over the last ten years. This thesis is a qualitative research project into the experiences of nine older children aged nine to twelve years attending OSHC at one of three research sites in Melbourne, Australia. In OSHC, older children are a minority group that practitioners have long regarded as more challenging than those aged 5 to 8 years. How practitioners currently understand older children appears to be greatly influenced by developmental..