Teachers blow whistle on ‘risks’

Young children are being put at risk by poor hygiene and understaffing at a daycare company, former teachers claim. Josephine Franks reports.

YOUNG children are being put at risk by poor hygiene and understaffing at an Auckland chain of daycare centres, teachers claim.

Former teachers at Discoveries Educare described children behaving like ‘‘caged animals’’ out of boredom and frequently getting hurt because there weren’t enough staff to supervise them.

The teachers, who worked at Discoveries as centre managers and relievers at various points between December 2014 and August 2019, believe some centres are ill-equipped to care for children.

Allegations of abuse and neglect, insufficient supervision and staff being unsuited to care for children were among the 26 complaints made to the Ministry of Education about the chain in 2017 and 2018, information released under the Official Information Act shows.

The 13 centres operating under Discoveries in 2017 and 2018 made up 0.2 per cent of all early learning services in New Zealand, but were the subject of 3.4 per cent of the 739 complaints made to the ministry in those two years.

Discoveries general manager Katrina Hamill said the organisation was ‘‘committed to [ensuring] the safety and wellbeing of all children that attend its centres’’.

She said a large number of the allegations made to the Ministry were never put to Discoveries for response. ‘‘Receipt of a complaint does not necessarily mean that something is being done incorrectly,’’ she said.

All of the teachers the Sunday Star-Times spoke to described a core of unqualified permanent staff, high staff turnover and a constant churn of relievers.

One teacher who relieved at a centre for three months at the end of 2018 said the constant changeover of staff was chaotic: ‘‘Who knew what was happening? I didn’t.’’

In an email to management seen by the Star-Times she said she was concerned that consistent understaffing was putting staff and children in an ‘‘unsafe position’’.

Her concerns were echoed by a former centre manager of the Browns Bay centre – since sold by Discoveries – who said she left the job because she felt she could not guarantee parents their children would be safe at the centre. She believed a lack of supervision meant accidents were common: children would bite each other and fall off things or trip over, she said.

She claimed staff were brought in from other centres for