Swedish leisure-time centres were formerly part of Swedish social and family policies but were transferred to an educational context in the 1990s. This transfer was accentuated by both the Education Act of 2010 and the new teacher training established in 2011, which also included education particularly directed for leisure-time centres. The state's intention with this discursive shift was to highlight education and learning within the activity in a more distinct way. This article is based on an ethnography-inspired study at one leisure-time centre called the Sunflower. The data are based on six weeks of field work including participating observations, field notes and walk-and-talk conversations. The study takes its point of departure from representations by staff concerning what they emphasise regarding the centre's activity, how these representations are related to each other and which strategies staff members use when talking about and monitoring the pupils' activities. The results show the strong presence of older traditions concerning values and practices regarding the performance at work: supporting children with good care, stressing the importance of children's free play and using a peripheral subject position during work. The results also show that a stress on the child-to-staff ratio as circumscribing the activity which is enhanced by the pupils misallocated age distribution.