Institutionalised extended educational services provide for primary-age children in the hours outside school, with a focus on children’s care, play and leisure. Despite its social importance, there is little research investigating the pedagogical practices of these services. This article reports on the first phase of an international research collaboration between Switzerland, Sweden and Australia aiming to provide greater understanding of global institutionalised extended educational services that are based on play, leisure and learning. The article provides a comparison of the current state of such services in each country, addressing its purposes, content and workforce, looking for the shared connections and subtle differences that characterise a complex field. The comparison shows that the educational practice in institutionalized extended educational services is a function of different histories and cultural contexts. In Sweden and Australia, educational practice seems better established with guiding curriculum frameworks, whereas the practice in Switzerland is more uncertain. These differing histories combined with their complex, heterogenous workforces complicate the project’s aim of producing a shared understanding of educational practice. This article provides a foundation and directions for future work investigating educational practice in extended education.