How the facts on this site are read and dated
Where the facts come from
We read each organisation’s own website and write down what it says about its offer for children: ages, the weekly timetable, prices with the period they cover, languages, trial lessons and whether a parent has to stay.
Addresses, map positions and opening hours may also come from the organisation’s Google Maps listing. For sports clubs, membership of a federation can come from the club list that federation publishes. An organisation with no website of its own may be listed from its Google listing alone, when the listing itself says it is for children; its page then gives only the address and opening hours.
With each fact we keep the address of the page, the date we read it and a short quote in that page’s language. Guides, news items, booking sites, social media and reviews are never a source.
Source labels
Each source wears one of three labels: published by the place (the organisation’s own website), Google listing (its Google Maps profile) or federation list (a sports federation’s club list).
On an organisation’s page the label and the date sit next to each fact, so you see at once where it came from and how old it is.
Facts that are not published
When the pages we read leave a fact out, the organisation’s page says ‘not published’ and the table shows a dash. That describes our sources and nothing else.
We never fill a gap by guesswork. A school stage such as kleuters or a leerjaar does not become an age, and neither does a swimming level. A price keeps the period the organisation names; the one sum we do is the ≈ price per lesson, a pack or course price divided by its number of lessons.
Lesson times and opening hours
The table has two columns for time. Lesson times: the days and hours of a lesson, a care afternoon or a camp day, as the organisation states them. Opening hours: when the venue is open, often from the Google listing.
An organisation can be open at an hour when no group runs for a given age. A row that has only opening hours sits below the dividing line, under a heading that says why.
The after-school pages look at weekdays from 13:00 to 18:00, a span that holds Wednesday afternoon as well as the hours after school on other days. A lesson counts when one of its groups starts inside it; care counts when its hours, extended hours included, cover all of it on at least one day.
What we do not judge
- Organisations, teachers, coaches and programmes get no rating, score or place in a ranking.
- We visit nobody; each fact rests on a published source.
- How well anyone teaches, coaches or looks after children is not something we assess.
- Free places and waiting lists are not tracked; ask the organisation.
- Prices appear as published, with their period and date; we do not confirm them with the organisation.
Right of reply
Do you work at an organisation on the list and see a fact that is wrong, missing or out of date? Send the right one through the correction form, with a link to the page that states it.
A correction the organisation’s own pages confirm goes into the next update and is logged among the changes. An organisation that closes keeps its page, marked ‘closed’, and leaves every table.
You can also ask for the organisation you work at to be taken off the list: choose ‘Have an organisation removed’ in the form and leave a contact detail that shows you write on its behalf. The organisation, its page and its rows in the data files go within a month.
Dates and updates
Each organisation’s sources are read again within 6 months. Prices for a period that has ended stay on its page with that period, but the filters and the summary line stop using them.
How the site is paid for
Organisations pay nothing to be listed, and no payment changes a row or its position, which always follows area and name.
An organisation’s page may carry one link to Zartrace, a service linked to this list and marked as such. Clicks on contact buttons are counted as totals only, with no personal data.
Open data
The whole list can be downloaded as JSON, one record per organisation, and as CSV, one line per programme. Both files hold every source, label and date and state their licence.
Areas, distance and the map
Areas are the districts of Antwerp and the towns around it, under the names parents use. The district Antwerpen itself is too large for one area, so it is divided into the quarters people name: Antwerpen-Centrum and Eilandje, Antwerpen-Noord, Antwerpen-Zuid with Harmonie and the Stationsbuurt, Kiel, Linkeroever and Luchtbal. Zurenborg is filed with Berchem. Berchem, Borgerhout, Borsbeek, Deurne, Ekeren, Hoboken, Merksem and Wilrijk are whole districts, and around them lie the ring towns, from Brasschaat and Schoten to Mortsel, Edegem and Zwijndrecht across the river. A location is filed under the area whose boundary holds it.
Distance is a straight line from the point you pick to the nearest location, rounded to half a kilometre. Your location is asked for only when you press the button, and it stays in your browser.
A position worked out from an address is approximate. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors; the boundaries of districts and towns come from OpenStreetMap too.