Let's Play Daycare

I am pregnant and was looking for a place before birth to help us during chaotic time. Decided here based on nice conversations with Shanti in the tour. Withdrew our child after just six weeks, two days a week — we had a lot of issues and we found this genuinely alarming for such a short stretch.<br><br>We were told two educators are rostered on the floor at all times. We never once observed that in practice, possibly why we had so many issues. When queried with Shanti we were told that she doesn't need to be visible to parents. It's a small centre so if you're onsite you're aware of who's there watching the kids, and more to the point, to look after kids, you do need to be present and visible (its even a requirement in the regulations not to count educators if they're not actually on the floor, and you would know if an educators is on the floor, its only a two room place). When I picked our child up educator many times looked overwhelmed by herself. Not an exhaustive list but to give an idea: an unexplained facial injury never reported to us, a significant amount of sand our child had ingested that we found in bowel movement and only found out about because we raised it ourselves, soiled clothing sent home with zero handover conversation (and generally a lot of accidents for child who is toilet trained), consistently picked up and was dirty, especially hands, mouth and face (when discussed just passed off as a result of 'independence led play') and an untouched lunchbox almost every single day, never led any initiative to discuss lack of eating with us just passed off as a child being a child. Serious concerns our child was just being left unmonitored to ingest sand cause they were hungry. Was generally told when bringing these up all these issues were documented internally and discussed amongst the staff — just never actually communicated to us as parents.<br><br>Communication here is v poor. One time, we only found out the centre was closed the next day at a 4pm pickup, and only because we happened to say "see you tomorrow" — if we hadn't, no one would have told us at all.<br><br>They talk good things about policies, ratios, and procedures, but none of it matches what actually happens with your child in their care. Don't take my word for it — verify their advertised hours against what they actually operate to (ask for the parent handbook it shows they only open from 8am-5pm), and ask yourself why those don't match either. They're not actually open between their registered hours of 6am-6pm or their advertised hours of 7:30am-6pm.<br><br>Could not recommend.