Precious Beginnings Children’s Centre

Great daycare. They need to do better on their administrative side

I am a staff member at PBCC and the past 5 years at the center, for me, have been a wonderful work and life experience. Being a Montessori teacher at PBCC has taught me so much. It is, in my professional opinion, an amazing working and teaching enviroment because the main focus of our center is teaching and watching our children grow and learn. Our passion towards achieving goals make us a strong and united center. At PBCC we work as a Team, not only do we provide the best educational care for the children but we also try our best in making our parents feel stress free when leaving their children in our care. My son will be joining the center in January and no words can express how excited I am, as a Mom, for him to begin his journey at PBCC.

This non-credited Montessori centre appears to do what is best for their pocket, before taking the best interests of the children and their parents concerns into consideration. When it opened up, it was decent. The caregivers overrode the owner. After being there for 5 years, I have come to the realization that the owner herself is driving it into the ground. Most days, you don’t even receive a greeting when you walk through the door. There is always a big turnover in staff and everything is a secret when it comes to previous employees. These employees work very closely with our children; straight answers would have been appreciated. Lots of wonderful ladies on staff, unfortunately they all leave. I stuck around too long hoping for better and unfortunately, it never happened. In my opinion, this business lacks compassion and humanity, two essential components.

I have mixed feelings about this school. Before I proceed with my review, I do want to emphasize how amazing the staff is. My child(ren) has been in several classes and the teachers have been fantastic. They are empathetic, involved and truly care about the development of their students. Overall Review: I feel the administration lacks organization, empathy and overall understanding of educating children. In fact over the years, I have noticed that the programs and offerings have decreased with a strong focus on cost savings. While for any business to run that is important, it is equally important to have a strong focus on education. The school isn't full accredited. So if you are looking for a fully credited Montessori program, this isn't for you. I have gone in early to pick up my child on a Friday afternoon and to my dismay, found her class watching a movie/ipad while the poor teachers were cleaning up for the week. I am all for different medias to offer various different types of learnings, but watching cartoons is not acceptable. I may as well keep them home with a sitter if they were going to be watching tv. When my children moved from class to class (infant to toddler and so on) there was no guidance provided what so ever. So I was left navigating through the process with no information. Now I don't need hand holding, but giving transitioning parents some information and perhaps arranging for a sit-down with the receiving teacher would be so helpful. There are no progress reports. Unless you ask the teachers, you really don't get a sense of how your child is performing, what areas they need more work and or what areas are they excelling in. With the work that comes home, you will start to notice how most of it is not your child anyways. Lets focus on work that the child can do vrs quantity of things being sent home. I feel the owner is always in an unhappy mood. She never interacts with the parents, is always in her office and doesn't even look up. She should be the face of the school, she should be speaking to parents and constantly trying to get feedback to strive for continuous improvement. The school has people enrolled because of its location. I think as other Montessori schools open up in the area, PBCC will have to up their game and how they remain competitive and relevant. That said, I have two children who will be finishing up here and while I love the teachers and recommend them whole heartedly, I have a hard time recommending the school simply due to the management.

I’ve been bringing my son here since he was 11 months old. He’s now 3. I intend to keep bringing him here until he out grows this school. From the beginning, he’s had great teachers (& assistant staff) who were all caring, compassionate and loving. He now in the casa program, and has learned so much that we can’t believe it sometimes. All the teachers are extremely helpful. They all provided feedback every time I picked him up, as well as made suggestions as to what I can do to help him at home. If I had any concerns or questions, I dealt with Clara. I found she was very helpful and considerate and took care of things swiftly. I also like that food for the children is made at the school, and that everyone else working there is very pleasant.

This daycare is not professional. There have been several cases of children getting injured inside and outside the classrooms. They also claim they have video surveillance yet refuse to show it to parents when there are incidents. Also, the Montessori learning here is rudimentary - the instructor doesn't even speak English properly (no thank you).

I am writing this review because the summer is fast approaching and my family is going to greatly miss their time at Precious Beginnings. My child has enjoyed the time he has spent with all the teaching staff. They have been remarkable ever since he joined the toddler room. He will be leaving soon to start kindergarten. I just wanted to thank all the teachers and the management for all their hard work. It's not easy taking care of all those children, but your warmth and affection for every child in your care shows everyday. Thank you very much!!

I have only been at this Montessori for a few months. My child loves his teachers and is always talking about them when we are having dinner. My child has learned a lot in the little time he has been there and I'm looking forward to when he moves up into the casa room. I've seen what the kids are capable of learning. My friend used to have her daughter in the casa room and they learned so much which helped her daughter when she later attended school.