Only About Children Freshwater

We were part of Freshwater OAC for about 3.5 years, with both our kids enrolled from 9 months old. While OAC served us well early on, our view shifted over the past year, so I wanted to share a balanced perspective for anyone considering the centre. When we joined, we lived nearby, met the director (who left shortly after), and despite the very high fees ($210–$230/day), we signed up straight away. The physical centre is excellent – modern, spacious, great outdoor area – and the app updates were lovely, especially for overseas family. The educators have always been warm, and we’ve never had concerns about our kids’ safety. The challenges emerged more recently. There’s rarely anyone at the front desk during morning drop-off and when there is, they will be on the computer and ignore us. It’s small, but when kids are unsettled, a welcoming face really helps – and it’s consistently missing. There has also been noticeable under-resourcing and educator turnover, especially in the preschool rooms. It wasn’t unusual to see 10–15 kids with one educator. On those mornings, if our daughter was upset, we were often left alone to manage it, which only made things harder. Subjectively, the overall “energy” of the centre has felt increasingly negative. Communication has also been poor: little visibility into upcoming activities, dress-up days, or special events, and often last-minute when we did get something. We were also never told when our kids were moving up rooms. More than once, we only found out after it happened. The most frustrating example was our daughter being held back from moving up with her friends eight months ago. We weren’t told at the time, and despite others moving out of the room above, she’s still separated from her peers and mixing mostly with younger kids, which has affected her socially. When she starts at Harbord Community Preschool next year, we asked to keep her at OAC one day a week. We know several families who do this, but we were told repeatedly that it wasn’t allowed. After 3.5 years with two children enrolled, that was disappointing and forced us to look elsewhere. Once we toured other centres, it became clear how much we were missing. The new centre near Freshwater offered things we never had at OAC: Individual learning plans Parent-teacher meetings Support with things like potty training Parent socials External programs like dance and soccer Independent quality oversight They also had no issue with part-time arrangements and made a point of moving kids up together. During our trial visit, all the children knew the director and ran up for hugs – something we’d never seen at OAC. That sealed our decision to leave.