Taking part in pre-school activities such as swimming and dancing not only improves a child’s fitness levels, but also makes them happier, according to new research.

The study by GoPlayGo – a newly-launched app that helps parents book activities for children – found that 81 per cent of parents believed their child had benefited from attending pre-school activities. The majority of the 180 parents questioned said that attending classes helped improve their child’s confidence, happiness and social interaction, with tots play, swimming and music activities found to be the most beneficial.

The research comes in the same week that ukactive called for more investment in extra-curricular activities to counter the drop off in children’s fitness levels found to occur during school holidays.

Having launched GoPlayGo apps for iOS and Android this month, company co-founder and CEO Robin Brattel hopes to help parents find a convenient way for parents to book kids’ activities that get them on their feet and away from computer screens.

“As a parent of young children myself I’ve found the process of finding and booking activities extremely frustrating, there are loads of listing sites, often out of date and I just felt there needed to be a better, simpler quicker way for me and other parents to find and book,” said Brattel.

“Recently I’ve witnessed just how amazing the classes are and I can’t wait to help parents discover that for themselves.”

To use Goplaygo, parents enter their post code and are then presented with a selection of activities in their vicinity – which can be filtered according to their child’s age (the app currently caters for 0-6 year-olds) and activity preferences – before proceeding to the booking page. The app, which takes a 10 per cent cut of bookings, caters for all manner of children’s activities and carries out rigorous quality assurance prior to providers being accepted.

“We’re initially launching in North London, but will look to scale out quickly and we’ll probably do a funding round at some point later this year,” Brattel told Health Club Management recently.

“We’ve also had significant interest from senior investors in America and we’d like to launch there as soon as possible.

“Ultimately we’d aim for global scalability, with booking options for all ages. Uber and Airbnb started from nothing, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t think big.”