BKR calculation and staffing in childcare
The GGD uses the same calculation tool as you do when it inspects. So working out the ratio is not the real problem. The question is whether you can show that the ratio held for the entire day segment, including around breaks, when a child was collected earlier, and within the three-hour window during which you may deviate.
Why a snapshot isn't enough
The staff-to-child ratio sets out the minimum number of staff who must be present with a group. In childcare centres that is one to three for children under one, one to five for one to two-year-olds, and one to eight for two to four-year-olds. In out-of-school care it is one to ten for four to seven-year-olds and one to twelve for those older. The ministry provides a calculation tool, and the GGD applies that same tool during inspections.
The ratio is therefore unambiguous. What makes it difficult is that it applies at every moment and that all the variables keep shifting. Children are dropped off and collected at different times, swap days, and move into another age category on their birthday. Staff take breaks, fall ill and sometimes work across two locations. Each of these events changes the outcome.
There is also the three-hour rule: you may deviate from the ratio for up to three hours a day, provided your policy records when. That is not a blanket permission but an agreement, and at an inspection you will be asked whether reality matches what that policy says. Without registration at each moment, it cannot be reconstructed afterwards. The calculation tool and its explanation are available at 1ratio.nl.
How we build this
The starting point is the day as it actually unfolds, not the planned schedule. The schedule is almost always right; the day departs from it, and it is precisely that difference the system needs to capture.
Which groups, what age mix, what opening hours and what break structure. Vertical or combined groups make the calculation considerably more complex, and that shapes the design.
The moments at which you deviate and why. These time windows come from your own pedagogical policy, and we adopt them as rules so that the system can check whether practice fits within them.
Each sprint ends with something you can check yourself, and we start by recording drop-offs and collections. Without those moments, every ratio calculation is merely an assumption about the schedule.
We have the system recalculate a past week and place the outcome beside what you believed happened. This usually reveals a moment that nobody had noticed.
What the software actually does
The ratio at each moment is the core; the registration of drop-offs and collections is what feeds it. The rest makes it usable on the floor.
Ratio at each point in the day
Not a single outcome per day segment but a continuous line, because staffing changes with every child who arrives or leaves. That way you can see where the day gets tight, rather than hearing about it afterwards.
Recording drop-offs and collections
On the group, to the second, entered by the pedagogical staff member or by the parent themselves. If this is filled in at the end of the day, the times recorded are ones nobody actually observed, and the reconstruction will not hold up.
Monitoring the three-hour rule
The system counts how much deviation time you have used that day and checks whether those moments fall within your own policy. A deviation outside the recorded time windows is something different from a deviation within the three-hour allowance.
Warning before things go wrong
A break that begins while there are too few people on the group is a signal in the moment itself, not in a monthly report. That is the difference between steering and merely recording.
Qualifications and registration taken into account
A member of staff only counts if they are qualified for the role and listed in the Personenregister Kinderopvang (childcare register). A trainee counts differently. Those rules belong in the calculation, not in the head of the location manager.
A file for GGD inspection
Per day and per group, you can look back at how staffing went, including any deviations and the reasoning behind them. Preparing for an inspection then becomes a check rather than a reconstruction from rosters and attendance lists.
Who we build for
The number of locations and whether you run mixed-age groups determine how complex it is. Four situations.
Day-care centres
This is where the ratios are strictest, and children move between categories on their birthday. With mixed-age groups, the required staffing changes that way without anything in the planning having been altered. If there is also a quality file to maintain, see the HKZ quality manual.
Out-of-school care
Looser ratios, but far more variable: short afternoons, training days, holiday weeks with different opening hours. The challenge is that required staffing differs by type of day, and the planning does not follow that.
Organisations with multiple locations
Staff filling in at another location, with the question of which location is short-staffed on top of that. With dozens of locations, that overview is the real reason to build this custom. With multiple locations, this touches on staff planning.
Childminding agencies and networks
Different rules and different paperwork, but the same problem: demonstrating that it was right at every moment. Have the applicable standards for your type of childcare confirmed before you build anything.
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Registration takes place in the group, with a member of staff holding a child, so one-handed operation is a design requirement. In addition, the calculation rules change, so they should be adjustable and stored per period.
If you want annual statements for all parents at once, checked against the invoices, take a look at our software for contracts, invoices and hours statements.
For care, where staffing follows from clients' care needs, there is our software for rostering based on care intensity.
For hours per child per month and the childcare benefit (kinderopvangtoeslag) submission, there is our app for childcare benefit hours submission.
Why Appfront
The GGD (municipal health service) uses the same tool
Calculating is not your problem; demonstrating it is. We therefore do not build yet another calculation tool, but the registration underneath it, which substantiates the outcome at every moment.
Steering rather than observing after the fact
A ratio that was not met cannot be put right afterwards. The signal needs to arrive at the moment when someone can still be brought in.
The three hours is an agreement, not a margin
During an inspection, the question is whether practice matches your own policy. We check against that, not merely against the total number of hours.
Honest about our role
We are not a pedagogical adviser or a regulator. Which standards apply to your type of childcare and what your policy says is for you to decide; we build the system that carries it out and records it.
Security and privacy
This concerns children, which makes every consideration more stringent. A child's attendance data says something about the family: who brings and collects, on which days a child is present, and sometimes how a custody arrangement works. The last point is especially sensitive for separated parents. We keep operational registration separate from anything related to family circumstances and restrict access to that separately.
On the staff side, something similar applies. Qualifications and registration status are needed for the calculation, but the reason why someone does not count does not need to be visible to everyone in the group. Furthermore, the daily record is immutable: a correction is shown as a correction and does not overwrite the original, because during an inspection or an incident, what was recorded at that moment is what counts. A system in which times can be smoothed out afterwards works against you. How we handle security ourselves is set out in our information security policy; reports from outside come through our vulnerability disclosure policy.
Frequently asked questions about the BKR
In a day nursery, one childcare worker for every three children under one year, one for every five aged one to two, and one for every eight aged two to four. In out-of-school care, one for every ten children aged four to seven and one for every twelve above that. For mixed groups, the ministry's calculation tool is used. Check the current standards, as they have changed in recent years.
Because the calculation tool gives a snapshot, whereas an inspection looks at the whole day. The GGD uses that same tool, so you cannot distinguish yourself with it. What is missing is the record underneath it: at what moment there were how many children of which ages and how many qualified staff. That is what you need to be able to demonstrate.
It keeps track of how much deviating time you have used that day and checks whether those moments fall within the time windows you have set out in your policy. That distinction matters: deviating for three hours at times not listed in your policy is something different from deviating for three hours as agreed. During an inspection, it is the second that is examined.
Then the child moves to a different age category and the required staffing changes, without anything in the schedule having been altered. The system handles this automatically and flags it in advance, so the planner can take it into account. In mixed-age groups, this is one of the most commonly overlooked causes of a shortfall.
That depends on their qualifications and on the rules that apply to your type of childcare; trainee childcare workers have their own conditions. We take those rules over as settings rather than hard-coding them, so that a change does not mean a rebuild. You determine exactly what applies together with your own adviser.
Often, and that is the intention: your planning system remains the source for contracts, placements and rotas. We take from it who is scheduled and additionally record who was actually present. It is precisely the difference between those two that matters. Which integration is possible depends on your package; we survey this in advance. This runs through integrations.
Only if it can be done in one motion and in seconds. A childcare worker often has a child in their arms and no time for a form. We build it as a single action on arrival and departure, optionally by the parent themselves on a tablet at the door. If it is filled in at the end of the day, the record is worthless.
That depends on the number of locations and groups, whether the three-hour rule is included and whether it integrates with your child planning. Daily registration with the ratio at each moment is usually quick to put to use and delivers the most value; the integrations cost more. We give a reasoned estimate after the discovery phase.
Ready to build childcare software?
Take a random day from last month and try to demonstrate that the ratio was correct at a quarter past two. What you then need is precisely what this system records. We build this as a standalone app and as part of a broader custom software project.