Kamal Saini
1/5
Although from the looks of it, this daycare will look like the best in town. The infrastructure, the cleanliness and just the area and location they have is really great.
But, inside, its not so great. Or atleast our experience was not so great.
1) Their program includes, 4 hours of outdoor play everyday(2 hours in the morning and 2 in the afternoon). Which maybe fine if the teachers put in an effort to design inclusive activities for the kids. But all they do is leave the kids in the open like a herd of cows and kids are wandering aimlessly. Especially the toddlers, who cant even speak properly. They cant tell what they want. I saw my daughter a few times there and all she did was look expectantly at other kids or teachers to just hold her hand and interact with her. In fact all the kids felt like roaming aimlessly in a trance. Toddlers need attention at all the times. If the teachers put in an effort to really engage them, they would be much more happy and content. But the teachers just gather around and chat. And 4 hours seemed too much to me in the hot sun for a little child.
2) The indoor activities- Though in their curriculum, you will see they have circle time everyday, but all they do in the circle time is switch on the youtube on the system in the class, kids will watch the songs and maybe dance. I was shocked to see the amount of screen time they give kids everyday.
3) Food - Though food is ok, but my daughter was always starving at the end of the day when i picked her up. She actually lost 2 kgs in the 2 months that she was there. We asked them if she doesnt like the food there, i can pack her lunch. But they were adamant that they didnt want outside food in their class which really pissed me off. It was affecting my daughter's health. The new daycare where i have enrolled my daughter, allows me to give her lunch. And she eats the lunch provided there too. So this way, i know that my daughter had atleast some food during the day.
4) Too many rules- Having rules is a good thing. But excess of everything is bad. They have so many rules and regulations, that as parents we felt stifled. And every week they wanted some thing new for their one day of play. For example, they wanted to have water play one day, and for that one day, we were supposed to buy, swim suit, water shoes, towel and what not. And they never repeated that exercise again.So all that money wasted.
5) They have staff on rotation every week. So although my daughter had one teacher assigned to her. But because of the rotation policy, she wasnt there everyday at dropoff. So my daughter would cry seeing an unfamiliar face in the morning. The connection which a toddler seeks in a caregiver, didnt form there. So my daughter would cry hysterically every day at dropoff. And many times, we found her crying at pick up also.
6) The daily reports that they fill dont reflect the truth. In the report they would have written, that my daughter ate well during the day, which was clearly wrong as when i used to pick her up, she literally would be starving.
So all in all, we didnt have a nice experience at this daycare. Not to count the number of infections she got there. In the same month, she had viral fever, stomach bug and an ear infection, in addition to the never ending cough and cold. But i guess that is normal at every daycare when a kid joins it. But we have enrolled our daughter to a different daycare and she is a different person now. She enjoys going to her "school" and has fun all day long as in this new daycare, they keep the kids engaged in different activities all day long. So she loves being guided and having fun at the same time. She loves her new teachers.
i hope my honest review will guide parents.
