Great Beginnings Mt Clear

Had our children enrolled here roughly 3 months. Please take note of the bad reviews. Firstly if something feels off trust your gut! We had multiple problems here while enrolled. Everything felt ok for the first couple of weeks then it all went sideways. The place as an oppressive dark feel to it. We witnessed our children being served morning tea on dirty plates and the excuse from family care was " they are stained" appalling safe food handling either way and plates/bowls don't cost alot to replace. We had to request a CWA to sign a couple of weeks after starting and the fees are outrageous. We apparently did not meet the CCS hours when we questioned why we don't receive our entitled CCS but had absolutely no guidance from management on the hours we required to meet this (we had guidance in previous daycare at another G8 centre in Melbourne) Our eldest felt unsafe and had an incident where another child hit her back leaving bruising and a welt on her back that lasted a week. We noticed while bathing her and reported it. No incident form filled out and staff were apparently not notified for 3 weeks after the event. We don't normally allow a comforter at daycare but we did after she became withdrawn and cried every day attending. After a day another child ripped the comforters nose off. We reported this and were told that they encouraged them if the children feel as though they need them. She started thumbsucking a month into care, something she had never done before and refused to let go of us when leaving her (a sign something was wrong) she became extremely withdrawn on the way to daycare and refused to go in (also a new behaviour as she attended another daycare and never felt this way) The children were displaying behaviours i had never witnessed before in a centre such as running around with brooms hitting at furniture and other children and absconding the classroom (kindy room) on 2 occasions when I entered the room on pick up leaving the educator in a difficult situation as they were unable to leave the children the room to collect the child who was absconding it was as though the children walked all over the educator's (I felt sorry for them) There was no structure in the room and no school readiness for prep. The class did not have a kindy teacher at the time and when they did hire one they resigned after a couple of weeks and did not have the free kindy grant im assuming because they struggled to keep a educator. The place smells unclean and the outdoor area is not what you see in the photos online. There were several empty rooms and very few children who attend the daycare. We had 1 orientation before commencing instead of the usual 3 in other centres that are offered. This place needs to have cameras with audio. The management is extremely poor and untrustworthy. This really needs to be investigated. We made a complaint to the G8 familycare (great beginnings family care )and it felt as though the response was very defensive and we really got nowhere. We had to threaten legal advice against this centre and management to get somewhere with them. After we gave notice the centre manager would not respond to our emails and would take weeks to reply if at all sometimes. Although she was happy to write to us after hours and weekends within a day of us asking a question. There are so many more daycares around please research and if something feels off dont attend. Be sure once you leave to sign in your child on the last day otherwise you'll be charged ridiculous amount of full fees. This was something not advised to us when we enrolled. We had high hopes with this G8 centre because our last one was amazing this one was thoroughly disappointing. I had concerns for the wellbeing and safety of our 3 children.