The Top 3 Childcare Centres in Cheltenham, VIC (3192)

Tulip Street Early Learning Centre runs from Tulip Street with 60 approved places and opens 7:30am to 6:00pm on weekdays. It is independently operated rather than part of a group, and takes children from birth through to preschool age.

Assessed in August 2024, it was rated above the standard in all seven quality areas — and its previous assessment, back in May 2020, returned the same. It is the only centre ranked here with two consecutive Exceeding results behind it. A regulator visit in July 2026, the most recent of the three, recorded no conditions on the service approval and no enforcement actions across the preceding two years.

A note on the name, because it causes real confusion locally. This is not Tulip Street Private Kindergarten, which operates separately on the same street under a different provider and is not ranked on this page.

First place here is close, and the losing argument deserves stating before the winning one. BiraBira, ranked below, was assessed seventeen months more recently and holds exactly the same result — above the standard in all seven quality areas — so on recency alone it would take the top slot. What puts Tulip Street ahead is everything either side of that. It has held Exceeding across two assessments four years apart, where BiraBira climbed from Meeting at its previous one, and a record sustained through two rounds tells you more than a single strong result. Its most recent regulator visit was July 2026 against November 2025, so the more recent look at the service was actually here. And it charges $11.00 a day less. That is trajectory, fee and inspection recency against assessment recency, which is how the same question was settled at Rowville. The genuine catch is meals: three inclusions covering nappies, education programs and excursions, with lunch and snacks left to you, where the centre ranked third covers every meal for less money. If your week runs on packed lunches anyway, this is the strongest sustained record in the suburb.

BiraBira occupies a purpose-built site on Warrigal Road with 119 approved places, roughly twice the size of either centre it shares this page with, and runs 7:00am to 6:00pm on weekdays for children from six weeks to five years. Its service approval dates from June 2020.

January 2026 brought an Exceeding result in all seven quality areas, lifting it from the Meeting rating it held in November 2022. That is the most recent Exceeding assessment anywhere in the locality. A November 2025 regulator visit logged no enforcement actions over the preceding two years.

The service carries one condition on its approval, and unlike the playground-standard clauses that appear across dozens of unrelated services, this one is specific to equipment at this centre. Before children may use the climbing wall and slide, the provider must complete and document a Kidsafe risk assessment; the resulting controls must be written into the centre's policies and procedures; parents must be given those policies and provide written authorisation for their own child to use the equipment; and one educator above the legal minimum must be rostered on whenever it is in use. A separate clause excludes the level-one outdoor area from the calculation of outdoor space. Nothing in the wording refers to an incident, a notice or a deadline to remedy a failure, so this is a set of operating controls attached to a particular feature rather than a response to something going wrong — but it is substantive, and it is the kind of thing worth asking about on a tour.

BiraBira has the freshest strong rating in the suburb and by some margin the most room. Its January 2026 assessment put it above the standard across all seven quality areas, seventeen months newer than the centre ranked above it and lifting it out of a Meeting result from 2022, which is a clear upward move rather than a plateau. Second place comes down to two things. The upgrade is a single data point where Tulip Street has two Exceeding assessments spanning four years, and a record you can see repeat is worth more than one you cannot yet. And it is the dearest of the three at $179.00 while publishing no inclusions at all — so a family cannot tell from the register whether meals are covered, and the eleven-dollar gap to the centre above could be wider or narrower once that is answered. On the condition: read it, then ask about it, but do not read it as a black mark. It attaches controls to a climbing wall, requires an extra educator whenever that equipment is in use, and asks parents to opt their own child in. Several of those requirements are stricter than the baseline law and none of them describes a failure.

Friendship Square is a not-for-profit co-operative on Friendship Square, holding 47 approved places and opening 7:00am to 6:00pm on weekdays for children from four months. Being a co-operative, it is governed by member families rather than an owner or a group.

Its July 2026 assessment is the newest of any long day care service in Cheltenham and lifted it to Exceeding overall, from the Meeting result it held in October 2022. Four quality areas sit above the standard — children's health and safety, physical environment, relationships with children, and collaborative partnerships — while educational program and practice, staffing arrangements and governance and leadership sit at Meeting. A May 2026 visit found no conditions on the approval and no enforcement actions across the previous two years.

Third place should not be read as a distant third, and on two of the five criteria this centre wins outright. It is the cheapest of the three at $160.15 and it includes every meal plus nappies, where the centre ranked first covers no food at all and the one ranked second publishes nothing — priced honestly, the gap to the top of this page is larger than $7.85 suggests, and it runs in this centre's favour. Its July 2026 assessment is also the newest in the suburb. What holds it at third is the shape of that assessment: above the standard in four quality areas against seven at both centres above it, with educational program and practice among the three still at Meeting, which is the area most directly about what happens with the children each day. It also climbed from Meeting only in July, so there is one strong result rather than a pattern. For a family choosing on total weekly cost, or one that wants a say in how the place is run, this is a defensible first choice rather than a compromise — the ranking reflects quality-area coverage, and you may reasonably weight the money differently.