Discoverynursery Arvostelua 2

Don't be fooled by the polished look and feel of discovery nursery in Eastcote. Our daughter attended the nursery a year ago when she was only 1 and I'm only posting this now as I don't want any other parent to go through what we and our daughter have endured in that place. Our daughter caught 3 different viruses in December 2023 and was admitted to hospital with severely abnormal liver function as a result, where she only fully recovered in May this year. It is true there is no way of finding out if she caught these in discovery but the likelihood is very high considering no one else we know had been ill. I also have evidence of a child who had been drinking from a mouldy sippy cup that belongs to the nursery, which only raises the question of child safety and wellbeing in this place.

We also saw a high turnover of nursery staff leaving this place, which I am not surprised with considering how difficult Funmi is to deal with. She lacks the basic empathy traits, was very obvious when not even once she called or texted to check on our daughter, knowing she was admitted to hospital. We only saw her true face really when we asked for explanation as to why she would be charging £35 a day for the government funded hours, she flipped and went all defensive, making it very awkward to even ask for an explanation and accusing us of starting a riot (believe it or not!).

I always had my doubts about this place and remember the first advice from one of the parents who said to me "you will learn what to believe" in regards to the information shared on the app or by the staff. How can we leave our vulnerable ones in a place we don't fully trust.

I only wanted to share our experience as I don't believe everything is as great as some of these very old 5 star reviews and people should be aware of the good and the bad, at least from our experience. Stay away if you want our advice and if you truly care for your child’s safety.

We chose Discovery nursery Eastcote due to the proximity to the station and its 'home away from home' positioning, however we wish we paid more attention to other aspects too. We found the baby room activities to be very basic and on most days all they did was paint or free play. Our child didn't learn much during their time which was a disappointment. Whilst the building is beautiful, it's not purpose built for childcare and many aspects of it are unsafe (no camera, no security, no stair gates). The rooms are large but lack posters and pictures on the walls which help children to learn and so it doesn't feel like a nursery. The nursery staff are lovely but mostly young girls without real life parenting experience and so we found they were filling our child up on milk and discovered bad nappy rash within a few weeks. The nursery manager is very business like and not at all empathetic or approachable. Whenever we raised any issues she became very defensive and didn't like confrontation. The nursery app used to update parents was updated once a day and we never knew exactly what our child ate for meals or how much. Most days our child came home starving and just wanted more milk as they were getting used to it. I would not recommend this nursery to parents who want their child to thrive. For the money you pay you can get a better Ofsted rated nursery easily. Don't fall for the location or building, its just a fascade. You won't see bad reviews of nurseries as the nurseries can regulate what information is posted about them and Ofsted only take complaints if they are raised at the nursery 🤷‍♀️