My niece attends this centre and I am so grateful to the staff for being so attentive and inclusive. Thank you so much

We made the difficult decision to withdraw our child from this daycare after losing confidence in the management and the direction the centre was heading.<br><br>Our child had been attending for around two years and is naturally very shy and introverted. It took a long time for them to build trusting relationships with their educators and gain the confidence to ask for help. Those educators were absolutely wonderful and played a huge role in their development.<br><br>Unfortunately, over a short period, multiple long-term staff members left the centre. There was very little communication from management about what was happening, despite many parents asking questions. The lack of transparency was disappointing and made it difficult to feel confident about our child’s care.<br><br>The educators who cared for our daughter deserve recognition, they were kind, patient and genuinely invested in the children. Sadly, our concerns were with the management and the overall running of the centre, not the educators themselves.<br><br>Removing our child was one of the hardest parenting decisions we’ve had to make, knowing they would lose the friends and trusted adults she had finally become comfortable with. No parent wants to start that process over again.<br><br>I hope management takes the concerns raised by families seriously and works towards rebuilding trust. Based on our experience, I cannot recommend this centre to other families.

Was good at the start but really went down hill

I could write a novel but in simple, avoid this centre. As a parent, you should not feel exhausted, worried or overwhelmed sending your child to a daycare, and this is what i experienced within our first month at this centre. As per the below comment, this centre DOES unfortunately cares more about their reputation and constant aesthetic interior/exterior re-designing oppose their ex-staff/children. It has been a long journey with this centre, with nearly 100% staff turnover and nearly 40-50% exited children numbers within months! Staff, especially management lack basic communication. No one relays any information. Accounting & billing was truely a mess and the list goes on .. and on.. Look elsewhere.

I used to love this centre however our stay was cut short just over 4 months of being there. For a first time parent who was nervous about putting there child in daycare, I had done my research and listened to recommendations. At the time this centre was highly recommended for the area. When the centre underwent management change, that’s when I noticed the centre took a turn for the worst with multiple staff leaving. This became an issue when having to merge Toddlers with Nursery room due to staffing issues. Other issues I had noticed was on multiple occasions my child would come home hungry and thirsty, therefore I constantly was checking throughout the day how much they were eating as recorded on the app parents were able to access about their child. A few times no recordings would be made until late afternoon, or if a recording was made stating my child had eaten a lot less then what they usually do which would explain my child being hungry. Other issues such as payments, paying more than daily rate. I had brought this up in email a few times requesting to pay less so my account wasn’t in credit and I was paying what was required, nothing ever got resolved. Many times items such as shoes & socks being lost due to staff not putting shoes back on the child after nap times. Additionally watching every time on drop off my child being upset. My biggest issue was when my child was left unsupervised by an educator for a period of time only to be found by another educator in a room where they shouldn’t have been. Then when the investigation undertook place at the centre I really had thought my child was apart of this said investigation, only to find out they weren’t. To me that was a massive red flag that multiple children had been missing due to staff not being able to look after the children, and it only made me wonder how many others were there that weren’t spoken about like my child who had went missing. Since leaving this centre & entering into another, all the issues spoken about above I no longer have problems with. Most importantly I have noticed my child is thriving more, no longer being upset on drop off, and has learnt a lot more than what this centre taught. I understand some centres undertake management changes and staff changes however when you have a whole centre having staff turnover max at around 90-100% capacity this screams a red flag because internally there is something going wrong with the centre. Yes this daycare would have heaps of availability now due to the amount of parents who have taken their children out of this centre, but choose wisely there’s a reason why us parents have made this decision. I would rather keep my child home then send them to this daycare

Initially our experience with Happy Hearts Reid street began positive our daughter had been here for 22mths she was very shy but made bonds with her educators and peers turnover was low. Recent experience is opposite to this. When new “management” started in January of this year we had started to notice a shift in the centre regular staff slowly disappearing and new faces appearing (no explanation as to staff movements) they weren’t directly involved in our daughter’s care but would be there on pick up and drop offs. When new management began our payment issues started(3 draws in one week even with management aware and apparently “fixed it”. In April there was a huge shift due to an incident in which 6 people left/ were let go, 3 weeks post this incident 13 staff total had left/resigned/or intended to resign this was extremely concerning for us and is in no way normal for any workplace particularly a small one. Due to management mishandling and extremely poor communication of this event/ the aftermath we decided to look elsewhere. Promises were broken our trust and confidence in management was non existent. We received no update as to how our daughter was coming and her future care plans. All the educators involved in our daughter care in the senior Toddler room had left. The effect this has had on our daughter was evident to us this affected her deeply and her communication to the educators had lapsed. In the weeks following the educators leaving we were told a generic “she had a beautiful day” but this definitely wasn’t the case she was coming home to us angry and upset . On almost every pick up in the 3 weeks post she had a wet/full nappy with on one occasion it was fully soaked though when my husband picked her up off the floor he was told by the educator on that “I noticed it was getting full we were just about to change her”. This showed us her distrust in her surrounds as she hates having a full nappy. Her water bottle was almost always completely dry/empty during this time and on these occasions on the way home she would consume almost a whole bottle of water. Comparably we have been at a new daycare in the area now for 2 weeks although this change was hard for our daughter(sad she wouldn’t be seeing her friends ) we had been getting a happier child back and she doesn’t have an intense thirst or wet nappy anymore. Communication from management was extremely poor. An example of poor their poor communication would be the way they communicated the incident in which 6 staff members were let go. On the Thursday we received a notification that they had “undergone an investigation, and as a result, some difficult decisions have been made to ensure the ongoing safety and wellbeing of all children in our care.” They then blocked the comments so we were unable to get any further information to query weather or not our child was in immediate danger to make a long story short they left us hanging for 4 days not knowing if our children were safe. We sent a private message which wasn’t answered during this time were promised better communication but Quality and effective communication hasn’t improved yes there is more of it but isn’t effective or purposeful communication. As a direct result of management’s actions post this/ leading up to along with the declining care for our daughter we left the centre (we don’t blame the educators specifically but with so many people gone they were clearly understaffed and overstretched). They did reach out for feedback directly to management but we had/have little to no confidence that it would make a difference. If you have made it this far in the review maybe you have had a tour? Yes it’s is a nice looking facility it has lots of things included it is the most expensive around but they have some serious problems/issues. Do yourself and child a favour and look elsewhere ask the local community group on their current recommendations first do research check the NQS and compare.

A centre more concerned about their reputation than your kids. You don't realise how stressed your kids are until they've been given a better environment. My daughter went from being anxious at drop offs at Happy Hearts, to ditching me to go play at her new centre. From ecstatic to leave, to begrudgingly saying goodbye to her friends at pickup. Kids can't always express their feelings, but they also don't fake them. Over the last 7-8 months, sadly watching all the familiar educators either leave or be removed under murky circumstances. Sometimes with an explanation, frequently without. Attempts to explain away the staff handovers have been corporate responses with no real substance. Accounting dramas, our payments and statements went from a structured fortnightly process to a veritable nightmare. Multiple payments in a fortnight, wrong bank accounts, payment schedules set up incorrectly, weeks without an updated account statements. To make it all worse, the denial of any errors on their behalf until it's so blatantly obvious, they can only apologise. We requested an independent review of our accounts only to have the same person, who caused all the errors, review our accounts and tell us that "No irregular charges, duplicates, or missing payments were identified in the sections reviewed". Feel free to make your own assessments, but I no longer recommend Happy Hearts.

I am editing my review as I can’t post another. In recent months the centre has undergone new management and staffing has changed tremendously. Whilst some people have had issues and been disgruntled with this process I believe the current Centre Director has handled it fantastically in my personal opinion. I have found, her to have been very open about what goes on within the centre, I have contacted her a few times in regards to different matters and have always had an extremely promptly and helpful response. I understand with change of management and staffing you expect inconsistency, but I never felt like the care of my child had diminished during this process, if anything I find the new director and staff more attentive and welcoming. The cook is amazing and produces a high quality nutritious meal based program for the centre. And the food is extremely tasteful. I always love seeing her in the morning with a emailed greeting us. Upon collecting my child recently a sample of the menu was on display for parents to try which I think is fantastic. As I mentioned some people have been disgruntled. Everyone will have a different opinion. It’s best to your the centre for yourself so you can get a feel for it and the staff. I for one am extremely happy to stay with them. Well done to Management and all staff. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ We started at Happy Hearts in January and it was the best decision. The staff are so welcoming and friendly. I am kept up to date across all fields regarding my daughter. My daughter has settled in extremely well and even made a few little friends. Thank you so much to the Happy Hearts team for welcoming us into your community.