Goodstart Early Learning Willowdale

I recently enrolled my 7month old baby and after 3 days of attendance I withdrew his enrolment. From day one we did not have a good experience, first morning I attempted to drop off my son, only one carer to be seen sitting with another child who was crying, another child arrived prior to us and was also crying, no staff attempting to settle him or take him from his dad we waited 10mins with no one approaching me to take my son so I just left, I wish I didn't return but they called me and I stupidly ignored my gut and returned. First reflection about my son is that he clapped his hands that day, my son has not clapped at all, chatgpt wrote his reflection! After the second day the carer who I spent most of the time with regarding his routine etc was transferred to a different room so essentially wasted my time doing two orientations with her to smoothly transition my son into care, but that's ok because these things happen, I assumed there would be some sort of handover but there wasn't based on the level of care my son received on his third day. The carer that replaced her had no interest in listening to what my sons routine was which was incredibly frustrating considering she didn't even bother to feed my son breakfast, I found myself calling the centre multiple times because they had no idea about my son or when he ate, when he slept, the fact that he eats breakfast! Everytime I spoke to someone they would give me a different version of why my son wasn't fed breakfast, there was no communication within that room. I pick him up that afternoon and there is another child screaming in his ear, right next to him and at no point were staff attempting to comfort this other child, I was calling out to my son for a while and he could not hear me...how long was this child crying and screaming in my sons ear??? His face was so blank, my son is always happy and smiling and he just looked so blank, it literally broke my heart. I grab his water bottle and he has had no water?? Was this not offered to him ? I get home I change him and he is screaming as I take his nappy off which he never does , it was so full as though it hadn't been changed for hours, there was also a poop smear as though he had previously pooped but not cleaned properly! I ring the centre and they tell me my sons nappy was changed 45 mins prior and that he hadn't pooped all day! What?! How could he have even filled it that much considering he didn't even have any water. There is no way that nappy was changed only 45mins prior, my son was then left with a nappy rash for a couple days, he has not had one nappy rash since he's been born. Here's the real kicker, when I returned to withdraw my son's enrolment I attempted to give feedback to the Director and she really wasn't interested. I should have trusted my gut from day one and not wasted time I needed to settle my son into care before returning to work, I feel like I was misled during my tour and orientation with the level of care my son would receive versus the level of care he did receive. I also feel like they try to tell you what you want to hear versus what is really happening during the day, they told me my son was happy all day, yet he had what looked like dry tears around his eyes. To say I am angry and heartbroken at the lack of care my son received at this centre is an understatement. It was already so hard for me to find the courage to enrol him and entrust strangers with his care and this is what our experience was, it really hit me afterwards that my son was just another number to this centre.

Good start willowdale seems to be an amazing centre while we had been for a daycare tour last year (Dec-2020). My daughter has been added to the waitlist for past 4 and half months and there has been no update regarding this. However, I see that other daycare centres properly maintain a waitlist and do call parents and ask if they want the waitlist to be active in their system or would they be happy if there are one or two day spots available to start off with. However, with Goodstart from the beginning there has been no response how many ever times you follow up with them. The administrative part is poorly managed and there are no updates whatsoever. It’s fine if the centre doesn’t have any spots left however there has to be a system in place to update the families as to what’s going on with the waitlist and has there been any progress or would there be spots available for 2022. But there’s no response at all from the management on this front.

Love it! Centre director - Daniella and Assistant director - Shweta Vij ; and all the educators especially Aarti and Vanja are absolutely fantastic. So caring yet highly professional. They are so welcoming towards celebrating every culture which is a blessing for living in a multicultural society .I feel blessed that my child goes to a centre like this.