Why parents are flocking to join Sydney's first multilingual daycare

A groundbreaking new daycare has opened up in Western Sydney and parents are already flocking to join the waitlist.

Because unlike most daycares, the Angsana Centre is Sydney's first multilingual facility teaching kids the world's three major languages; English, Mandarin and Spanish.

Angsana founder Shen-Lene Gan tells 9honey Parenting the idea has been more than ten years in the making, after a simple conversation with her brother in 2012.

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"He asked me if I had found a place for my children to learn Mandarin after migrating here in 2009 [but] I was struggling to find one where learning Mandarin would be fun for my boys at that age," Gan explains.

Gan says her brother's kids attended a kindergarten in Malaysia where they learnt Mandarin, Malay and English and "he saw the benefits of that".

She says "one conversation led to another" and the project officially kicked off in 2016.

Seven years later and it has now opened to a great reception.

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"We've been open for less than a month and our nursery rooms are fully booked [and] we have children enrolled waiting to start with us until July."

"We have tours and new enrolments almost every week [so] the reception from the community has been incredible and we are very grateful for it."

And it's not hard to see why, with nearly half of Australians having a parent born overseas, 27 per cent born overseas and 22 per cent speaking a language other than English at home.

Mum-of-one Laura is one parent who jumped at the chance to enrol her son there, despite "living far" from the centre.

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"I chose Angsana because I loved their educational plan, the inclusion of languages and even more, the different cultures."

And she says the instant change she noticed with her son was "fascinating".

"My son manages to interact with other children in other languages with great ease and confidence and he has developed very good motor skills for his age.

She also says his English, which is his second language, "is getting better and better".

Keerthi is another mum who managed to get her son into Angsana before it booked out and says she feels good leaving him there knowing "he's taken care of really well".

"The teachers are really amazing and very kind, they give so much importance to kids and the parents [and] they are very welcoming."

Keerthi also says she's noticed an incredible difference with her son and "can't stop praising Angsana and the teachers".

"My son now speaks different languages, he's learnt kindness, he's very calm, he socialises well, he knows how to engage himself, he is very independent and he eats well."

Gan welcomes the compliments and says it's the result of a lot of hard work to "set a high standard" for both themselves and the centre.

"Having a dream and turning it into reality is not easy but we are passionate about early childhood education, and we knew from the beginning that we wanted to have a first-class centre."

She says they were very focussed on standing out from the rest.

"We are not a centre where parents send their children only to be cared, we are a centre where the child is continually motivated to learn and discover new things every day, with structured classes and programs developed especially for our children."

A sentiment reflected in the results of Australia's biggest study into infant and toddler language development in early childhood.

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The "significant findings" of the 2023 Macquarie University investigation reveal children from non-English speaking backgrounds often start school with weaker language skills than their English-speaking peers.

The study "highlights the need for educators to be supported so they can focus on providing a rich and varied language environment for all children regardless of their multilingual status."

This is something Gan says they strive for every day.