Childcare Advisor

Hi,

Let me start off by saying that about 6 months ago, our little boy and we as parents was happy with how things was with daycare, and there was a few things that I would have wanted to change, but I understood that looking after children is a full time job, and we cannot expect everything to be perfect. So why did it change 6 months ago? 

My child has been in the centre for +/- 17 months. New centre director started +/- 6 months ago, and we really started to feel that the standards of the daycare centre dropped drastically. We received no communication that the teamleader in my son's class has left, and who the new person was. I would pick my boy up in the afternoons from daycare, and it was like they couldn't make the effort to communicate to me how his day was. On their mission statement, they pride themselves with daily communication between staff and parents. Upon my enquiry they said they don't have enough staff after 5:30pm. Which brings me to my next point. On their website they advertise that they have excellent ratio's. Not true - they just comply with the required 1:10 ratio, and many times have I actually counted that their ratio is more than 1:10, definitely counted about 1:13 one day.  

Things like not cleaning his bottom properly at nappy change times, and putting on too small nappies (they provide the nappies) and so tightly that it left red marks on his bottom and tummy could only be resolved once we took photos and showed the staff, because they called us liars. 

Maybe before parents are accused of lying, the centre director should do an investigation, and get all the facts. My child was bitten twice and I asked out of curiosity was it a boy or girl, I was told off and said it has nothing to do with me, it is confidential. I did say to them that I did not ask for the whole history of this boy or girl, I thought it would be funny if my boy was bitten by a little girl. I do know things like this happens at daycare.  Obviously my boy took biting as an acceptable thing to do, and also bit another child 4 times - or so they say, because I do not know how they would be able to have allowed him to bite this child four times, if they were there to supervise, and stop it. The supervisor admitted that they did not see it happening. This was said to me in the open class room with lots of parents around picking up their children, no consideration to confidentiality was given to me, but I was told off when I ask if it was a boy or girl, and till today they say I am lying, because I apparantly demanded to know who the child is. When I picked up my child in the afternoons, he had other children's clothes, socks and shoes on. I was not happy with this, we kept on asking can they not put each child's clothes in a pigeon hole or bag with their name on. They do have these bags, but they don't use them, they just throw all the clothes on the floor and when it comes to getting them dressed, they don't know what clothes belong to which child. When I picked him up this Thursday it happened again, and I asked the supervisor if she would like to put on my shoes and socks, if that will be acceptable for her. She said no. She then proceeded to tell me that my boy put on the socks himself, that he must have stolen it from another child and then she changed her story and said that it only happened after 4pm. Their was just so many inconstancies in all her stories.

We just cannot trust them, as they just shift blame and responsibility without having any facts at all, or just not caring about the facts. The centre director called me and my husband liars, even though we have clearly proven in a couple of instances that the staff is lying.

In the last 6 months it has been one issue after another, ineptly handled and poorly resolved. It is amazing how almost 2 years of a good relationship with the teachers and the previous centre director can be destoyed within 6 short months.

 Very dissapointing experience, as put your child in their trust, but they do not deliver on their mission statement. Centre director also stated that her 14 month old grandchild can do so much more than my 2 + year old child. One would think that as a centre director of a childcare she would know and understand that each child development is unique, and not make insulting comments. Do not recommend. Just an update on this. Even though we are no longer at the daycare, they keep on sending us monthly statements, showing we owe them money. Once again this shows their poor administration skills, and how disorganised they are. Upon calling the centre director to inform them to please stop sending the statement, and that we do not owe them anything, she clearly had no idea what was going on in her own department/centre.