I have been looking at 4 year old preschools to enrol my son in for next year. I rang Upper Ferntree Gully Preschool to organise a time to visit. 'Sure' they said, 'come down anytime'. I let them know I would be down same day.
When I arrived, the educator was busy with story time so I had a walk around with my son.
When she was finished, she did not approach us. We were left to wander around.
I approached her in the end to ask a few questions. One was what session times they run. She told me the session times for this year which total 11 hours, and I mentioned that I wanted to know about next year, especially given that the 15 compulsory hours per child was being introduced. She replied 'oh yes, there's that National Quality framwork thing, isn't there?'. Didn't fill me with much confident.
I asked a few questions and got very brief 1 sentence answers. It was like trying to make conversation with a brick wall.
Did not introduce themselves to me or my son.
I gave up in the end and left (again, unnoticed). I was concerned about strangers essentially coming and going as they please.
I noticed one girl wanting to do a painting and they couldn't find any paper, which I thought was strange.