Childcare in Cranbourne, VIC (3977): Our Top 3

The Mundaring Drive campus sits behind the Cranbourne Park shopping centre and is licensed for 140 children. That figure covers its before and after school care as well as long day care, so it is not a like-for-like comparison with the other two centres here. It first opened in 1994, and the building families see today is not that one: the service was demolished and rebuilt from the ground up, reopening in late 2021. So while the name has been in the suburb for three decades, the rooms, the yards and the kitchen are only a few years old. The operator runs several campuses around Cranbourne and Clyde.

Its September 2026 assessment returned Meeting overall, down from the Exceeding it held from December 2022. Two of the seven quality areas remain above the standard: collaborative partnerships with families and communities, and governance and leadership. The three areas assessed at Meeting were educational program and practice, physical environment, and relationships with children. The register also shows collaborative partnerships above the standard at the previous assessment in March 2017, when the service was rated Meeting overall, so that particular strength has now been recorded twice, five years apart, rather than appearing once.

The published fee of $166.88 a day, unchanged across the age bands, covers breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, other meals and the educational program. Nappies and excursions are not on that list, which matters when comparing it with the two centres below: both Community Kids and Little Stars list eight inclusions, and both say nappies are covered. A funded kindergarten program runs in the year before school, and the operator states across its campuses that it takes part in the Victorian Free Kindergarten Scheme, which reduces what a family pays during the kinder year. Ask the centre to put the current funded hours in writing.

Hours are 6:00am to 6:30pm on weekdays. The service takes children from six weeks, and its own site describes programs running up to twelve years, which reflects the before and after school care the operator offers at some campuses. No casual vacancy was shown for the week starting 19 October 2026, so the waitlist is the realistic route in. One detail to note when you visit: the register records the address as 18 Mundaring Drive while the centre's own site says 16-22, which is the same site described two ways.

Mundaring Drive heads the page through our published tie-break. The top three beat each other in a circle: Community Kids edges it on fees, it beats Little Stars on the date of its rating, and Little Stars beats Community Kids on parent reviews. When that happens the newest rating at the same level comes first, and Mundaring's September 2026 assessment is the newest. Weigh what that rating says: Meeting, down from the Exceeding it held from December 2022, with two quality areas still above the standard. Its six-item inclusions list is the shortest here, and it showed no casual places when we checked.

Community Kids Cranbourne is on Duff Street, approved for 120 places and open 6:30am to 6:30pm on weekdays, and is run by G8 Education, which has held the approval since 2012. The national register files it under Cranbourne West, but its trading name and its map listing both say Cranbourne, and under our locality rule that majority places it on this page.

Its centre page describes long day care and a government-approved kindergarten for children from six weeks to school age, in nursery, toddler and three-to-five rooms, with a kindergarten program delivered by Bachelor-qualified teachers. An in-house chef prepares five meals a day, and the centre says nappies, wipes and everyday essentials are included.

Its June 2026 assessment came back Meeting in every quality area, as the November 2022 one did. A regulatory visit in April 2026 led to no enforcement action, and there are no conditions on the approval. The register lists $165.85 a day at every age, with eight inclusions, and it showed casual places every weekday for the week starting 19 October 2026.

Community Kids is second through the same tie-break that puts Mundaring Drive first. Against Mundaring it wins on fees, $1.03 a day less with eight listed inclusions against six, but it loses to Little Stars on parent reviews after the two split fees and capacity, and Little Stars in turn loses to Mundaring on the date of its rating. In a circle like that, the newest rating comes first, and Community Kids' June 2026 result is three months behind Mundaring's. It is the only one of the three with casual places showing across the week.

Little Stars occupies a 65-place service on Walter Street, a short walk from the Cranbourne station precinct, and is one of ten centres its operator runs across Victoria. Of the three centres on this page it is the smallest by approved places, 65, which some families prefer and others do not; the practical effect is fewer children in each room group and a smaller building for a new starter to learn. Rooms are arranged as a nursery from six weeks to sixteen months, two toddler groups covering sixteen months to three years, and a kindergarten room for three to five year olds.

The June 2025 assessment rated all seven areas Meeting, with none placed above the standard. That result belongs to the operator running the service today, which took the approval over in January 2023, and the register records the transfer date, so the rating describes current management rather than a predecessor. An earlier Meeting result, from May 2022, was issued before that change and should not be read as the same operator's record. The regulator last visited in April 2025 and recorded no enforcement action in the two years to the date we checked.

What separates it on cost is the inclusion list rather than the headline rate. At $158.00 a day for every age group it is the least expensive of the three, $8.88 below Mundaring Drive and $7.85 below Community Kids, and the fee covers breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, other meals, nappies, the educational program and excursions or incursions: eight items, the same count as Community Kids and two more than Mundaring Drive. The rate has also moved recently, from $149.50 in July 2026 to $158.00, a rise of about 5.7% in two months, which is worth raising when you enquire.

Its review record is the deepest on this page, 4.9 across 107 Google reviews. Funded three-year-old and four-year-old kindergarten programs run inside long day care hours, taught by a qualified early childhood teacher. The register does not publish a vacancy grid for this service and directs families to contact it, so availability has to be checked by phone. One practical note: the number recorded on the register is missing a digit, and the operator's own site gives 03 9626 5424, which is the number that connects.

Little Stars is third on our published tie-break. On the rating it sits within a year of Community Kids and Station House, so those pairs go to the other criteria: it beats Community Kids on parent reviews (4.9 from 107 against 43) after the two split fees and capacity, and it loses to Station House on fees, where Station House charges $150.00 with no inclusions listed. Station House, Learning Ladder and Little Stars beat each other in a circle, and the newest rating, Little Stars' June 2025, breaks it. It is the least expensive of the three ranked here and lists eight inclusions, including nappies. The register publishes no vacancy grid for it, so ring before you plan around a start date.