The Learning Experience

Absolutely horrid. Worst childcare mistake my husband and I have ever made in 3.5 years. Aside from a handful of staff who are genuinely excellent with children and seem to have real childcare experience, the rest are absolutely clueless about how to care for a child. The worst of all is Lee, the director, who I never once saw interact with any of the children, yet he felt it appropriate to lecture my husband and I daily about our parenting. Completely out of line and unprofessional.
Though the facility claims to focus on the individual development and needs of each child there, in reality the children are grouped up and constantly shuffled around between different teachers and if a child doesn’t fit into their «system», such as if a child doesn’t nap for example, they are completely unprepared to accommodate that child’s needs and instead choose to punish that child as if they were misbehaving. Takes a very conformist approach to childcare. A good child with a unique or spirited personality will have a very difficult time there if they don’t conform to the formula. The «curriculum» is less focused on actual learning of useful skills and information and instead on teaching children about subjects they don’t really need to be learning at their age. Is it nice that they told my daughter what «astronaut» is in Spanish? Sure. Did she really need to know it given that they don’t actually teach Spanish in a way that children can truly learn it? No, I think not.
If you’re going to teach something, then teach it properly so that the student learns it not just memorized and regurgitates it on command like a parrot. That’s not education, that’s training.
The facility itself is a series of closed isolating rooms and is always cold, no matter what the time of year or temperature. The daily activity reports are all pre-​printed at the beginning of the day and generic. Nebulous scale for judging a child’s behavior. Parents expected to correct bad behavior with almost no contextual information about it beyond generic footnotes such as «was disruptive in class» «not listening» and «yelling».
Lee will swear up and down that he can accommodate any schedule since the facility is open 6am to 6:30pm, but in reality he DEMANDS that children (at least the preschoolers) be there no later than 9am every morning or they will be turned away. Likewise if a parent is even a little late picking up a child the facility will call child services and turn the child over to them. (Not hyperbole, actually stated in TLE rulebook.) They are heinously overpriced considering they can’t even manage to wipe a child’s nose or give the child a tissue to do it themselves.
From feeding children the standard Sodexo fare of hamburgers and chicken nuggets for lunch everyday to the sad little cubby next the front desk with a filthy little mat on the floor they call an «infirmary», I could go on and on, however the very worst thing about this place was that my daughter who loves to learn and has been in daycare since she was 6 months old, HATED going there. She would literally cry and scream and beg us not to take her there EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. for 5 months until today when we finally had enough and said good bye to that place forever.
I cannot stress enough that if you value your child’s individual emotional and mental development then do not waste your time or money at The Learning Experience.

I have been sending my daughter to The Learning Experience in Blackwood since she was six weeks old. The staff are very caring and the children are well cared for at this facility. The owner takes an interest in all the children and their parents. In addition, the hours are great and if you are the last to pick up your child you are not made to feel like you are a hassle to the staff. They frequently offer a parents night out on a Friday night, in which, you pay a nominal fee to keep your child there for a night out for several hours. My daughter enjoys going to the center each day. They have retained some long term staff who love the children. Ms. Mary and Ms. Barb are fantastic and all the other ladies who work at TLE.

I have to say my son has been there at least 4 years. The other day he balls his eyes out and says another kid keeps touching him inappropriately when no one is looking (which he tells me the teachers are always on their phones). The owner didn’t want to do anything about it and pretty much just sweep it under the carpet. So if you want your children to learn how to eventually get suspended in school send them here!
I wouldn’t even say 1 star but I had to, to complete this review!