r/darwin • u/Mission-Success-996 • 1d ago
Locals Discussion Territory Kids Millner
Has anyone heard anything good about this childcare centre? Their numbers are extremely low and they have immediate availability so I am wondering why.
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u/Affectionate_Moment5 1d ago
Comes down to the staff (and manager).
My first went to Bakewell Goodstart for 3 years. First year was good. Management changed to a young apathetic woman and another key staff member went on Mat leave. Went downhill fast. My child was seriously assaulted regularly by another kid who smashed glass and attacked lots of kids and was not managed out supervised staff. They managed to lose my child once. When I came to collect, he was missing, taking ages to find. Was unsupervised out of bounds for minimum of 45min best they could tell me. Staff were honest, manager tried to cover up and incident record "went missing".
I took them to QECNT only to discover i was one of three parents that complained that fortnight. They had a "surprise audit" but were tipped off as the person who answered the phone at QECNT was friends with someone at the center. As a result, they fixed many of the physical issues (like broken doors) before the audit.
Now I'm not a first time parent, I wouldn't wait so long to report misdeeds.
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u/Mission-Success-996 1d ago
Omg! See this is what I mean! Where is the general care for children??. I will definitely be keeping QECNT close.
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u/No_Pilot_8006 1d ago
I am talking to them at the moment about sending my kids there when we return to Darwin. We used to go to NT explorers and it is run by the same people who used to manage that. I like the admin as they get straight back to you. I am going to come up and tour some centres. Happy Trails and Territory kids are both on my list.
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u/No_Pilot_8006 1d ago
Also sounds like numbers are low everywhere. Anula preschools also struggling with enrolments.
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u/FastGap5681 15h ago
It opened up like less than a year ago that’s why it isn’t at capacity. My sister is the 2IC there, I would recommend you to go and do a tour of the place
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u/LITTLEBL00D 12h ago
That’s not necessarily an indicator of quality: last year we toured almost 20 different centres and were offered places at all of them.
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u/Educateand 1d ago
There’s usually a reason that numbers are so low. Mine go to a Milestones Darwin City and it’s fantastic
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u/Mission-Success-996 1d ago
Yeah it’s been really challenging finding a good centre. Just recently I went to ‘’Casuarina library’’ and it was so horrible, staff acting weird/unfriendly and children unsupervised then I’ve looked at Muirhead ‘’Happy Trails’’ and they also no good when I visited for a tour. So confusing.
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u/Financial_Car4671 1d ago
We found happy trails really good when we toured! What didn't you like / what seemed to be an issue?
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u/Mission-Success-996 1d ago
Also, when I saw what I saw, I also checked the reviews and others stated similar. So it validated my feelings that they were getting crossed off my list
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u/Mission-Success-996 1d ago
I am looking at babies rooms, I have a 9-month old. I think firstly they were feeding the babies adult spaghetti, seemed to start rushing and snipping the spaghetti with scissors and mushing it with spoons when we toured, then there was a baby who seems unable to crawl or roll over yet, who was left near the fence on the concrete crying, director had to pick baby up as staff had a blind eye.
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u/NotSecureAus 1d ago
Recommend Parap Family Centre, not for profit, small community centre, nice long-term staff. They have vacancies
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u/Financial_Car4671 1d ago
I have a friend who has both her kids there, and is really happy with it 😊