How we gather, date and correct the facts

How the facts are gathered

We read each provider’s website and keep what it says itself about children: ages, the weekly timetable, prices together with the period they pay for, languages, trial classes and whether a parent has to stay.

Address, map point and opening hours may come from the provider’s Google Maps listing. That a club belongs to a sports federation may be shown by the member list the federation itself publishes.

For every fact we keep the address of the page, the day we read it and a short extract in the page’s own language. News articles, guides and portals, booking platforms, social media and reviews are never used as sources.

What the source labels mean

Each source carries one of three labels, written as on the providers’ pages: ‘provider’s website’ (its own page), ‘Google listing’ (its page on Google Maps) and ‘federation member list’ (a sports federation’s list of member clubs).

Next to each fact on a provider’s page are the label of its source and the day we read it, so you can judge for yourself where it came from and how fresh it is.

When a fact is missing

If none of the pages we read gives a fact, the provider’s page records it as not published and the table shows a dash. That describes what we found on the pages, not the provider itself.

We never fill gaps with guesses. A school year, such as the first year of primary school, is not turned into an age. A price keeps the period the provider names; the only sum we do is the price per class marked ≈, when we share a course or package price over its classes.

Groups and opening hours are not the same thing

Times go into two columns. Groups are the days and times of a class, a training session, an afternoon at a KDAP or a camp day, as the provider gives them. Opening hours are when the venue is open, and they often come from the Google listing.

A venue can be open without holding a group for the age you are looking for. That is why a row with opening hours only goes below the line, under a heading that gives the reason.

The after-school pages look at weekdays from 16:00 to 20:00: the hours after the all-day programme ends, when most children’s groups in Thessaloniki meet. A class counts if one of its groups starts within these hours, and an after-school centre if its opening hours cover all of them.

What we do not judge

• We neither score nor rank providers, teachers, coaches or programmes.
• We do not visit providers; everything we write was published by them or by others.
• We do not judge how well children are taught, coached or looked after.
• We do not know whether a group has free places; only the provider can say.
• Prices stay as published, with their period and date, unconfirmed by the provider.

When a provider asks for a change

If you run a provider on the list and see something wrong, incomplete or out of date, write to us through the form and add a link to your page where the correct fact appears.

Once the provider’s pages confirm the correction, it goes into the next update and is entered in the dated changes. If a provider closes, its page stays with a note that it has closed and it leaves every list.

You can also ask for your provider to be removed: choose ‘Remove a provider’ in the form and give a contact that shows you represent it. Within a month we delete the provider, its page and its records in the data files.

When the list is updated

We read each provider’s sources again no more than 6 months after the last time. A price for a period that has ended stays on the provider’s page with its period, but the filters and the line of figures leave it out.

Who pays

No provider pays to be on the list, and no payment changes what a row says or where it stands.

A provider’s page may carry a link to Zartrace, a service connected with the list, and that is stated plainly. Clicks on the contact buttons are counted only as totals, with no personal data.

Open data

You can download the whole list as JSON, one record per provider, or as CSV, one line per programme. Both files hold every source, label and date and state their licence.

Areas, distances and the map

The City of Thessaloniki is divided into its communities, under the names residents use: City Centre, Xirokrini - Vardaris, Ano Poli, Toumba; the large fifth community is split in two, Charilaou - Depo and Analipsi - Faliro. The surrounding municipalities are divided into their former municipal units, such as Neapoli, Sykies and Pefka, Stavroupoli, Polichni and Efkarpia, Evosmos and Kordelio, Pylaia and Panorama, while Kalamaria and Ampelokipoi - Menemeni are one area each. Thermi and Oraiokastro are areas of their own. Every address belongs to the area whose boundary it lies within.

Distance is measured in a straight line from the point you choose to the provider’s nearest address and rounded to the half kilometre. Your location is asked for only if you press the button, and it never leaves your browser.

Where a position was worked out from the address, it is approximate. Map data and area boundaries: © OpenStreetMap contributors.