Fueling Brains Academy - New Brighton

Fueling Brains Academy at New Brighton has been a great environment to work with. I have been working in this campus, with incredible staff and management for 3 years! The management provides opportunities for the staff to grow and thrive for success. This location have the most wonderful team- great communication, supporting each other, building connections with the families, positive energy, fun activities and very appreciative.Sure, there have been some ups and downs when some transitions were placed and I am fortunate enough to have witnessed the professionalism of the management on making sure that staff are supported, heard, uplifted and guided. Great and instant solutions are always in place to make sure that we can continue to provide care to the families of New Brighton! Fueling Brains Academy (KidsU) have provided me so many opportunities to be a great teacher and continue to love what I am born to do!

Our son has been going here since June and I can't say enough good things about it. He started in Jr. Preschool and has since moved up to Sr. Preschool and everyone we have interacted with has been phenomenal. You can tell the staff here truly cares about the kids and loves what they do. The program is excellent and there is always something happening that my son is excited about. The kids get a ton of outside time at the centre and in the community which is really important to us. Food is healthy but still kid-friendly. And seriously, the teachers are AMAZING. Communication is always excellent and I love the daily updates and photos as well. Would highly recommend this location for childcare. We never have an upset kid in the morning because he has to go to school!May 5, 2022 - updated since my original review is over a year old. My kiddo is still attending KidsU at this location, and we are still very happy with this location. There has been very little staff turnover since we have been coming here, and the whole team is amazing with the kids. My son is still very excited to go to school :)

Positive side:The teachers are friendly.Negative side:1. Kids are sleeping on the floor (dirty carpet,where everyone are charged their boots)2. In each group ~40 kids3. Don't have the playground zone. Yes,they have space,but it is not a playground zone.And one more thing,I registered my second child,they took the fees,but during 3 years nobody was called me.

Our daughter has been attending the infant program since August. She absolutely loves going to daycare and spending time with her super caring teachers. We feel at peace when we drop her off because we know she's has all her needs met. She is always showing us new things she learned at daycare, like sign language. Thank you for the wonderful work you all do!

My daughter (3years old) has been going to KidsU (now called FBA) since 11months old. She started in the infant room where she received lots of cuddles and smiles making it easy to drop her off each morning. I like that they went out for daily walks and that they have a very healthy meal plan. When she turned 18months old and moved on to the junior preschool room I could see difference of sending a kid to an educational daycare instead of a dayhome. Her vocabulary was improving rapidly and with the focus they have on selfcare and basic life skills she was becomming more and more indpependent. They were also very supportive with potty training. The last couple of months she started at the senior preschool section which was a big change in moving to the different classes each day but I feel it prepares the kids to embrace changes as part of life. FBA senior preschool is a great program with a nice balance between learning and playing. I am very happy with the service I receive, the teachers really make an effort to know the kids and the parents. My son also started in the infant room recently so can't wait to see what skills he come with next (already surprised me that he can hold and use a crayon on a piece of paper!).

We love KidsU New Brighton.We have enrolled our daughter there and we couldn’t be more pleased with the love, care and attention she gets from the amazing teachers and staff; the staff and the teachers make themselves very accessible and very supportive. My daughter loves them and has improved on her social skills enormously. She used to be shy around other children but she is much better now. I am so happy to see the positive changes she has exhibited from her short time of enrollment and I would recommend it to anyone without hesitation.

Our daughter looks forward to daycare everyday and she loves her teachers and friends. She has made amazing growth in every way. Her language and social skills have skyrocketed these past few months. We love the daily updated we get via the app and during pick up time. We are very grateful to the Infant program team for all their hard work and the wonderful care they provide to our daughter. Thank you!

A new change in management has really affected this location. We used to refer this location to friends when run by Jocelyn but have been left frantically searching for other childcare. Our friends who have been referred have also left.The classrooms have exploded with kids in the recent years. There are a few amazing teachers (Jesse, Elijah, Diane) but they are understaffed, under resourced and seem to often run over their ratios.The KidsU head office is impossible to reach. You can call their their entire directory and no one will pick up. Emails will often be ignored and the campuses/parents are left to fend for themselves.They will offer referral programs that will not be honoured. You can sense an overall sentiment that KidsU is focus on running a profitable business rather than passionate about childcare.They introduced a new program for the junior level that shifts the children three times a day and constantly breaks up the cohort of children into different groups. The class size is 37. With teachers seeing three different sets of kids, as different groups, each day, you can tell they are struggling to create any personal bonds. The children are moved around at a pace that they don’t remember teachers names and are left without personal connections.Feedback was shared directly with the program administrators to highlight the challenges in their new program but there isn’t much influence at the campus level.We’re happy to be moving on to a new daycare. KidsuU was great up to 2021 but has really lost its way.

The staff are kind, we really did enjoy a lot of the teachers at Kids U. The issues we had were on a corporate level, the profit-driven nature of this company made it feel like our kids were a number and despite the caregivers trying to connect with our kids, they were just not set up for success with so many kids in each room.I'm writing here in hopes to help other parents take into consideration a number of things we hadn't realized when our infant and toddler started at Kids U. Here are some points I think are worth considering when you decide about whether this will be the right environment for your infants/toddlers.- Infant room: there are SO MANY infants in this room (I don't remember the exact number but I think 18+) that if your infant is used to one on one attention at home, you may want to consider whether this is the right environment for your little one.- 18mo-3 years: they switch classrooms every week, including teachers. If your little one is used to a schedule or routine, and seeing the same people every day, this is a big consideration. In our case, our little on never really settled in because she didn't get the chance to build a relationship with her care providers or feel comfortable in her environment.- Potty training: our 3 year old had been potty trained for a year already, never wore pull ups, yet they couldn't remember whether she was potty trained so she constantly came home in pull ups (despite constant reminders), which we were lucky this didn't affect our potty training progress, but it definitely could have for other kids. She is still asking every day if she will be put in pull ups... and we've never used pull ups at home.- Care and attentiveness: after over 2 months at this daycare, there were teachers who saw my toddler 3 days a week and still didn't know her name. The care providers at her current daycare know their personalities better in 1 week than they were able to in 2 months at Kids U.- Constant staff turnover: wherever you choose for your childcare, look up the Glassdoor reviews of previous employees to get an idea of what it is like for the teachers.- Outdoor space: they have a small space at the back of the building for the kids to play, but often it is at capacity so the toddlers are taken to a field to run around, or the infants are taken on a stroller talk. This is fine but, again, worth considering what the right choice is for your particular child. Mine are now flourishing in an environment where they are both able to play outside twice a day on play equipment and with toys.

My 2 year old twins have been in Jr Preschool at the New Brighton campus for about 6 months now and absolutely love it. We, as the parents, love it as well! The food menu has great options, the teachers seem to actually care about the children and their development and the curriculum, which is a mix of Montessori and Reggio, is excellent.