Little Zak's Academy Mount Colah

This review is for prospective parents from a family that has chosen to remain at the centre. The recent negative commentary you’ll have read stems from a baffling decision made at management level that ended up forcing out several beloved staff members who had strong relationships with the children. This decision and poor management thereafter led to the remaining longstanding staff moving on, along with many families. As a family that has been with LZ Mt C for 3 years (and potentially another 4), this has impacted us hugely. My child no longer has any educators or friends remaining who were there when she started and it has become tough to convince her to go each week. But please be reassured that the staff currently at the centre do a great job caring for and educating our children. Is it comparable to a smaller centre? No. But as far as I know we aren’t facing the kinds of worries we are reading about in the news at other centres. It feels like ratios can be a problem, but I mostly feel safe leaving my 3.5 year old there. Little Zaks as a group is hugely profit-driven (100m revenue / 20m profit posted in FY24). This in itself isn’t a problem - all businesses are profit-driven - however the problem comes from it acting like the big corporation it is. They failed to recognise that parents genuinely care about how frontline staff are treated as these are the people helping raise our kids. However, I will say that the CEO was open to hearing feedback from parents so I’m hopeful that over time LZ Mt C will return to a community-led culture. I also hope that at an HQ level they now recognise that the investment parents make in them is not just financial, but emotional. In the hope that current staff are happy and not in a hurry to move on, I can say that LZ is a decent centre, with good staff, reasonable pricing, good food, and a great outdoor play space.

We’re personally very happy with Miss Rubab and Miss Kanchan in 0-2 years old room and little inventors’ room. They have created a great bond with my boys and the drop off is no longer stressful for us. Nevertheless all educators in these rooms are doing amazing considering the amount of work they have.

I am disappointed with the care my child has / has not received here. My wife has previously posted a review outlining only SOME of the issues at Mount Colah Little Zaks. Their respond to this was, who are you and what centre do you attend we can’t find you in our records… yet her full name and review was posted for the daycare our child attends. It’s disheartening to know they are genuinely disregarding any reviews or feedback and are washing their hands of bad publicity and pretending that you are not one of the families at their facility. I wouldn’t recommend this centre and I’m devastated that we kept our daughter here as long as we did, her health and her wellbeing has suffered being at this centre. Even being on waitlists at other centres I feel like we have had a better connection and rapport with staff and managers than what we have done at Little Zak’s Mount Colah.