Our new search: your questions answered

You can now type what you want as you would say it, and we work out the type of activity, age, place and day for you. You can still use filters and search by town or postcode, just as before. Results show on a map as well as a list, and if you’re signed in we can highlight classes that are a good match for the children in your account.

No. If you search using only the filters, or with just a town or postcode, your search is not sent to AI at all. The AI only reads searches written in your own words. You can also switch back to our old search whenever you like.

Yes. Choose Use the old search just under the search box on the new search page. To come back, choose Try the new search at the top of the old search. We remember your choice on that device.

It reads the words you type and turns them into a search, for example “Swimming, age 3, within 10 miles of Lydney, Saturdays”. You can see exactly what it picked out in the boxes above your results, and tap the × on any of them to remove it.

The AI doesn’t write the listings you see, doesn’t decide which classes are good, and doesn’t make any decisions about you. It may show a short tip, such as the kinds of class that often suit a child’s age.

It can happen, especially with unusual wording. Check the boxes above your results: remove anything that’s wrong with the ×, or use Filters to set things yourself. If you have a minute, please tell us using Tell us how we did below the results, as it helps us improve the search for everyone.

Listings are written by the people who run the classes. Some use our listing helper, which suggests wording based on their own website, but they check and approve everything before it is saved, and changes may be checked by our team. Class details can change, so it’s always worth checking days, times and prices with the provider before you go.

Class providers can pay to promote a listing. Promoted listings are always labelled Promoted. The AI that reads your search does not favour any provider.

Only the words you typed. If you’re signed in and have added children or grandchildren to your account, we also send their first names and ages, so we can understand searches like “something for Lily” and highlight good matches. We never send your name, email address, contact details or exact location, and we never send surnames, dates of birth or photos.

Our AI is provided by Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI. It processes your search on our behalf only to provide our search. It does not use your searches to train its AI, and keeps them only for a short time for safety and security.

If you’ve added children or grandchildren to your account, we use their first names and ages to spot classes that suit them. Their details stay in your account. You can change or remove them at any time in your account, and we stop using them straight away.

We keep a record of searches for up to 24 months to understand what families are looking for and to find gaps in the classes we list. Before we keep a search, we replace any child’s name in it with “[child]” (or “[grandchild]” on Generations). On What’s On 4 Kids, searches are not linked to your name, email address or account. We never record your exact location.

You can type a town or postcode, use a location saved in your account, or choose Use my location, which your browser asks your permission for. If you don’t give a location on What’s On 4 Kids, we start near the town your internet connection appears to be in. This is only a rough guess, we show it on screen so you can change it, and we don’t store it.

Please don’t include a child’s full name, health details or contact details. If you mention something like additional needs to find suitable classes, we use it only to find those classes.

Yes. Email us at info@whatson4kids.co.uk. You can read more in our privacy policy.

Use Tell us how we did below your search results, or email info@whatson4kids.co.uk. If a listing has the wrong details, please tell us which one and we’ll ask the provider to update it.