This paper first combs through the concepts and theories of extra-curricular education，then it mainly observes the situation and characteristics of Chinese children’s participation in extra-curricular classes through data analysis，and analyzes the influential factors of participation and expenditure of extra-curricular classes. It finds that there are obvious differences in extra-curricular education in aspects of urban-rural differences，school differences and family differences. Among them，the most worthy thing is that：there are apparent differences between the only-child family and the non-only-child family；the participation of migrant children and left-behind children in extra-curricular education is lower than the average level，while the situation of migrant children is better than that of left-behind children；children in urban quality schools enjoy the largest investment on extra-curricular education，while children in rural ordinary schools are often self-abandoned，presenting as a “Matthew effect” in education. Based on the above discoveries，this paper concludes some relevant policy recommendations.