Where the facts come from and how they are checked
How a provider gets on the list
We read each provider’s own website and record what it says it offers children: ages, the weekly timetable, prices and the period they cover, languages, trial classes and whether a parent has to stay.
Addresses, map points and opening hours may also come from the provider’s Google Maps listing. For a sports club, membership of a regional or national sports body may come from the list of clubs that body publishes.
Each fact is kept with the address of its page, the date we read it and a short quote in that page’s own words. Directories, news stories, booking platforms, social media and reviews are never used as sources.
Source flags
Each source has one of three flags. Published by the place: the provider’s own website. Google listing: its entry on Google Maps. Federation list: the member list of a sports federation or association, such as a regional union or a national body.
On a provider’s page the flag and the date stand next to each fact, so you can see who said it and how recently it was read.
When a fact is missing
If the pages we read do not give a fact, the provider’s page marks it as not published and the table shows a dash. Not published refers only to the pages we read.
Missing facts are not filled in by guesswork. A school year level is not turned into an age. A price keeps the period the provider gives; the one sum we do is the ≈ price per class, a package or course price divided by the number of classes it includes.
Class times and opening hours
Times sit in two columns. Class times are the days and hours of a class, a care session or a programme day, as the provider gives them. Opening hours say when the venue is open, and often come from the Google listing.
A venue can be open at an hour when no group for a given age meets. A row that has opening hours and nothing more goes below the dividing line, under a heading that says why.
The after-school pages look at weekdays from 15:00 to 18:00, from the end of the school day into the early evening. A class counts when one of its groups starts inside that span; after-school care counts when its hours, late pick-up included, cover all of it.
What we do not assess
- No provider, teacher, coach or programme is rated, scored or ranked.
- Nobody visits the providers; every fact comes from a published source.
- Nobody judges how well a provider teaches, coaches or cares for children.
- We cannot tell whether a group still has a space; ask the provider.
- We do not check OSCAR approval by the Ministry of Social Development, safety checks of staff or any other registration.
- Prices appear as published, with their period and date, and are not confirmed with the provider.
Right of reply
If you run a listed provider and a fact is wrong, missing or out of date, send it through the correction form with a link to the page that shows the right fact.
A correction that the provider’s own pages back up goes in at the next update and is recorded under revisions. A provider that has closed keeps its page, marked closed, and drops out of every table.
A provider can also ask to come off the list: choose “Remove a listed provider” in the correction form and give a contact that shows you run it. Within a month the provider, its page and its records in the data files are taken down.
Dates and updates
Each provider’s sources are read again within 6 months of the last reading. A price published for a period that has ended stays on the provider’s page with that period, and the filters and the summary line leave it out.
How the site is funded
Providers do not pay to be listed, and no payment changes a row or where it sits in the table.
A provider’s page may carry one link to Zartrace, a service affiliated with this list and marked as such. Clicks on contact buttons are counted as totals, with no personal data.
Open data
The full list can be downloaded as JSON, one record per provider, or as CSV, one row per programme. Both files carry every source, flag and date, and name their licence.
Suburbs, distance and the map
Areas are Auckland’s suburbs with the boundaries and spellings of Land Information New Zealand (NZ Suburbs and Localities), macrons included, as in Ōtāhuhu and Māngere. A suburb of fewer than fifty residents is joined to a neighbour. Beyond the city’s suburbs a branch is filed under its town, such as Orewa, Silverdale or Pukekohe.
Distance is a straight line from the point you choose to the nearest branch, rounded to the nearest half kilometre. Your location is requested only when you press the button, and it stays in your browser.
A point placed from an address is approximate. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors; suburb boundaries from Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand, under a Creative Commons BY licence.