Headstart Early Learning Centre Berwick

Amazing Centre. High quality educators and happy children! Highly recommend this centre to all families.

Big shout out to the crew at Headstart Berwick on Parkhill! Whether I’m dropping off or picking up, the attention that gets shown to my boys has always been incredible. With those rough/hard mornings or early starts I have seen them care for our kids as if they are their own and always keeping me in the loop! My boys are talking about their educators on the way home and always reporting having happy days! For this tired Mumma the team definitely put our minds at rest knowing they safe and having fun! Thankyou!!!

How do you rate a childcare where 2 back to back incidents happened to your kid, the 2nd one being as severe as the child getting a fracture in his leg and none of the 4 educators in the room had any clue regarding how it happened. So this incident happened on 17th of July, when we got a call that our son is in distress. We asked if anything happened but they just told they are not sure exactly, and gave us an impression like he might be missing his parents. We reached there in less than 30 mins and only after that they told something has happened to his leg and he is not standing. They didn't even care to call us immediately when they noticed that. The incident report is the proof that nothing was administered to him. Our son was crying desperately when we reached there and we noticed the office admin was just sitting beside him holding his water bottle. All his regular educators were busy and no one was with him. We immediately realized something is wrong with him as when we tried to make him stand, he was just not putting his right leg down. Till date the question bugs us like how the 4 educators, the admin who was a floater educator did not realize the severity of the incident. We strongly doubt their knowledge of providing first aid or handling little kids who are unable to speak. Kindly note, this incident happened in the Joey classroom (which is not that huge) under the supervision of 4 educators who later told us they have not noticed anything happening. There were just 13 kids in the classroom at that time, and if all educators say that no one has noticed anything, that only concludes how good they are with their job. We took him to the emergency immediately, to discover that he has got a fracture in his right leg. It was a proper fracture and not a hairline one. The centre had not provided us with any incident report on that day of incident, so we went to collect it the next day. We wanted to understand what had happened exactly, but no one gave us any proper information. They just told our son was sitting at 1 place (which was not even a corner of the room or was hiding anywhere) and he suddenly started crying. It just broke our heart the way they were uncooperative with us. Talking about the frequencies of incidents, our son was bitten by another kid just 5 days back (July 12). It was winters, and he was wearing a sweater. The bite was good enough to tear his skin and for blood to come out. Again, think about the alertness of the educators. They were not even fast enough to stop the kids when such things happen. I would have rated them 0, just for the way they have made this a business rather than making it a place for care and compassion. We drop our kids thinking our child is safe with them and will have a good time. But they ensure that they give us more stress. There is no camera in the daycare, educators are not cooperative, centre manager leaves early, so there is lack of leadership. Imagine the admin lady who had just joined two months back before this incident, was taking care of our child and was also the acting centre manager at that point of time. We had noticed when we go to pick our kid, the educators are always near to each other chit chatting among themselves, rather than being scattered and keeping an eye on the kids. They serve afternoon snacks around 2.30-2.45 and after that nothing is served to the kids till the parent picks them up. Many parents had complained about the same and their reply is that we the parents should encourage our kids to ask for food. Kids are too small to ask for food by themselves, the centre should be pre-emptive to offer something as simple as food to them in regular intervals. I would ask the parents to think twice before sending kids here. Imagine the situation, how would you feel if something like this happened to your kid and for lifelong you won't even know how that happened.