The Best Childcare Centres in Mernda

I Am Learning is on Sackville Street and is open from 6:30am to 6:30pm on weekdays. Starting Blocks lists full-day rates for every age band from birth to preschool, at $146.00 a day for each, the lowest of the three ranked centres.

Its July 2025 assessment returned Meeting National Quality Standard across all seven quality areas, repeating its June 2021 result. A regulatory visit in June 2025 recorded no enforcement actions in the preceding two years. The one condition on its approval is the standard Category 4 bushfire clause shared by services on Melbourne's fringe, under which it closes on a declared Catastrophic Fire Danger day.

The register lists no inclusions against the full-day rate, which records what the operator supplied rather than what the centre provides, so ask what $146.00 covers before comparing it with the other two.

I Am Learning ranks first. Its July 2025 Meeting rating is the joint newest of the eligible long day care centres in Mernda, level with Only About Children, and fourteen months newer than Story House's. Tied with Only About Children on the rating, it wins on fee, $146.00 a day at every age against $170.10, with opening hours and program level. It holds 5.0 on Google from 22 reviews. The register lists no inclusions against its full-day rate, so ask what the fee covers.

Only About Children Mernda is on Bridge Inn Road and is open from 6:30am to 6:30pm on weekdays. Starting Blocks lists $170.10 a day for every age band, with eight inclusions recorded against that rate.

Its July 2025 assessment returned Meeting across all seven quality areas. The service changed operator on 8 July 2024, and its earlier Exceeding rating, from April 2021, was issued under the previous operator, so the two results are not a single team's record. A regulatory visit in May 2026 recorded no enforcement actions in the preceding two years.

Three conditions sit on the approval, all of a kind that appears across many unrelated services: playground barrier and equipment standards, natural elements in the outdoor spaces, and the Category 4 bushfire clause.

Only About Children ranks second. Its July 2025 rating ties I Am Learning's and sits fourteen months ahead of Story House's, so it outranks Story House on the rating alone. Against I Am Learning it loses on fee, $170.10 a day against $146.00, with hours and program level, though it does publish eight inclusions where I Am Learning lists none against its full-day rate. Two things to know: the operator changed in July 2024, so the earlier Exceeding rating belongs to the previous one, and we could not verify a Google review figure for this address.

Story House Early Learning Mernda at 5 Bent Street is a 120-place centre serving children from six weeks to five years across dedicated Nursery, Toddler and Kindergarten rooms. It holds a Meeting NQS rating issued May 2024, with Exceeding in collaborative partnerships with families and communities. The program runs on Story House’s STRONG Beginnings curriculum, an inquiry-based approach that emphasises confidence, resilience and emotional wellbeing, with a Pathways to School literacy focus for the three to five-year-olds.

Learning spans STEM (hands-on coding, bee studies and recycling projects), arts using real tools and open-ended materials, nature play and sustainability through the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program, and wellbeing through yoga, mindfulness and healthy eating. A professional on-site kitchen, led by Chef Sunny, prepares fresh meals daily using garden produce, with interactive cooking classes for the children. Communication with families runs through the Storypark app.

The centre charges no bond or enrolment fee, and its daily fee is all-inclusive, covering meals, supplies and activities. Other features include weekly sports and yoga, monthly excursions, intergenerational community programs, and safe-sleep practices aligned to Red Nose Australia guidelines. The centre is open Monday to Friday from 6:30am to 6:30pm.

Story House Mernda ranks third, and the reasoning is worth setting out because the rule alone does not settle it. Its May 2024 Meeting rating is fourteen months older than the two centres above it, which places it below both. For third place it ties the Mernda YMCA (May 2023) and Where We Grow (October 2022) in a chain that loops: it is newer than Where We Grow by more than twelve months, Where We Grow is cheaper than the YMCA, and the YMCA is cheaper than Story House. Where a tie-break goes round in a circle, the newest rating at the same level breaks it, and that is Story House, which also has the deepest review base of the three, 4.4 on Google from 140 reviews. It is the dearest centre on this page, $178.30 a day up to 35 months and $172.80 from 36 months, with an all-inclusive fee, no bond, an on-site chef and one Exceeding quality area.