Speaking Up: Money, not children and families, at the heart of everything for “premium” children’s centre.
This article, from a parent, is published in the OECE’s speaking-up series.
10 July 2025.
When I first visited the centre in which I would enrol my son, I marvelled at the incredibly healthy, wholesome and varied meals prepared by the in-house chef.
The outside play area was another draw card for me. It was beautiful, bright and huge – perfect for an outdoor baby. (Though I’d eventually see there were minuses to its size, as well as pluses, but more on that later.)
The idea where “children and families are at the heart of everything” they do and that children and family thrive together in a purpose built place got me interested. I thought my son would be happy and safe there. Nope!
By the time my son started at the centre, the original chef had left and a new one, who favoured “the basics” because they were “easy” to cover all dietary requirements, had started. The menu would often repeat and the food wasn’t as nutritious as it had been previously.
I was disappointed because the food was always a decision maker for us. I was also surprised, especially considering how much we paid in fees. The centre marketed itself as a “premium” service. But the quality of the kai would turn out to be the least of my worries.
Often when I arrived at the centre for pick up I’d see many kids still playing outside with only one or two teachers around, or no supervision at all, in an outdoor area that is relatively big and has many blind areas.
One day, at pick up time, I was walking towards my son in the outside area when another kid zoomed past on a balance bike. The other child almost ran down my son, hitting him in the torso with the bike. I was shocked and looked around, expecting some support from staff. But I couldn’t see a single teacher around.
Here’s an excerpt of what the manager told me when I brought up the incident:
“It is simply impossible when there are roughly 125 children and 30 staff members to see everything that always happens. Our teams are encouraged to be autonomous and independent and respond to the children’s needs. The children are consistently spoken to about gentle hands, caring for their bodies, and talking to a teacher if they need additional support.
“Unfortunately, incidents do happen and provide an excellent opportunity for children to understand social competence and how to effectively engage in a group. It is important to us as teachers to not immediately jump in and resolve the children’s problems, but to give them time to react and decide on their emotions to the scenario. Children will fall, hit, trip, and sadly push but we are focused on teaching the children resilience and the ability to pick themselves up again through adversity.”
My son wasn’t even 2 – and yet when another child hurt him he was expected to learn “social confidence” and “resilience…through adversity”? Those comments cut me to my core.
I don’t think that’s good enough. Do you?
It wouldn’t be the last time my partner and I would raise a health and safety concern at the centre, in good faith, only for it to be completely dismissed.
One particular instance that springs to mind is when my partner noticed at drop off one day that the rubber handle bars on the balance bikes the kids used had worn through, exposing the metal underneath. He immediately explained to a teacher that this wasn’t safe – the end of the handle bar could act as a cookie cutter in an accident. (He is an engineer and his family has built motorbikes for decades.) So he asked them to restrict access to those bikes until they were fixed.
When I went to pick up our son the bikes were still available. They hadn’t been fixed. The next day, one fell on the foot of one of the kids and, you guessed it, hurt the skin.
My partner bought some handlebar plugs to close off the holes and gave them to the teachers. The following day he saw they hadn’t been installed, so he put them on himself.
The safety issues weren’t confined to the playground either. Over a period of two weeks, three kids injured themselves inside my son’s room. One girl cut her forehead open by striking it on the play kitchen. My son hit the corner of his eye on a table. I emailed the manager to ask them to evaluate the layout of the room and do a health and safety assessment.
I wasn’t surprised to discover that a week later another boy hit the side of his neck on the edge of the same table my son was injured by.
The centre manager was so rude during our communications about the incidents. She never provided me with any feedback or the outcome of the health and safety check I requested.
I was just told that basically: “we evaluated and don’t think anything is wrong with the layout”. I won’t even try and describe the face-to-face meeting my partner and I had with her.
The final straw for me was how staff handled (or should I say didn’t handle) an altercation with another parent. Towards the end of the year, during pick up, my son was extremely upset one day because his friend refused to put on her rain jacket before leaving the centre. (It was raining.) As my son pulled the jacket from my hand, he accidentally hit the little girl and her dad with the zip. Of course it hurt, it was an “ouch” moment, and I was about to get him back close to me and apologise.
Before I could get to my son, the other child’s dad grabbed my son by the arm and started telling him off. I obviously reacted to that, asking that he let go of my child. I told him not to touch my son again or address him in that manner. There were two teachers in the room at the time. Neither said or did anything. All I would’ve expected was for them to gently remind the father that you shouldn’t touch other people’s children or speak to them unkindly.
I brought up what had happened with the manager the next day. I asked if she could please send out a reminder to parents about how every child had a right to feel safe at the centre.
She apologised and said she would do it. But no email went out. No message was posted on StoryPark. Nothing. What my partner and I did hear was that staff were afraid of us and that we were difficult people to deal with. Really?
Shortly after the incident with the other parent our family went overseas. We’ve since returned to New Zealand and enrolled our son in a different centre.
The experience we’ve had at his new daycare couldn’t have been more different. It isn’t a “premium” daycare. It isn’t huge, it isn’t “purposely designed”, bla bla bla. But there my son is loved, cared for, offered great food, great support. And so are we, parents.
I would not recommend the first centre my son attended to anyone. While some of the teachers there are lovely (and my son did connect well with a couple of them), I can’t say the same about the management. It is all about the money and looking fancy.
